


The World That Has Passed

by Casiosiris294



Series: Endure & Survive [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 'cause it's about to leave the station, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Angst, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Blood and Gore, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everyone swears like sailors, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gay Keith (Voltron), I hope you're all ready to board the angst train, Keith & Shiro (Voltron) are Adoptive Siblings, Let the Voltron cast swear 2kAlways, M/M, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Alternating, SORRY BOYS THERE WILL BE SUFFERING, Slow Burn, The Last of Us!AU, Violence, also shit sucks in general in this universe but I am less sorry for that because it's fun for me lol, because everyone WOULD if it was the real zombie apocalypse fuck, because hey it's still the Voltron crew, buckle up here we gO, but at least they have each other, but it's also the Last of Us so, don't worry there will still be fluff and levity, my boys are Not Okay, the infected are gross and I'm sorry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-31
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-08-11 01:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16466543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Casiosiris294/pseuds/Casiosiris294
Summary: Four years have passed since the cordyceps outbreak ravaged the world. Civilization crumbled in the chaos that followed, leaving the remains of humanity to pick up the pieces.Lance is holed up in the ruins of the Garrison Flight School with Hunk and Pidge, the three of them struggling to save enough supplies to leave in search of their families. Keith and Shiro are on the run, willing to do whatever it takes to hide a life-changing secret.In the post-outbreak world, everyone has demons and scars, and whether or not the survivors are the lucky ones depends on who you ask. The infected have lost any trace of who they once were, but after the horrors they’ve endured, is what’s left of humanity any better off?After a chance encounter brings them together, Keith and Lance start to realize that maybe all they need to feel human again is each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween, everyone! :D I’m SO excited to be bringing you guys another klance fic! I’ve been working on this for a long time and thought, “what better time of year to get a fic like this going than Halloween?” Since I have plans for Halloween night after work, though, here I am posting this for all of you at midnight instead, haha. xD 
> 
> For those of you who have read my coffee shop AU, please be aware that, given the nature of The Last of Us, this is going to be a lot more “serious” and plot-heavy. BUT that’s what makes it fun~ ;D Also, this fic takes place four years after the cordyceps outbreak rather than twenty years like the game. This fic is _inspired_ by The Last of Us and takes place in the same universe, but will not follow the events of the game exactly. I’ve put a lot of time, effort, and love into this AU, so I really hope you all enjoy it!
> 
> The title for this fic comes from [“The Scorch” by Shelby Merry!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPEN9fskD1U) It’s a kickass song and fits this universe so well, I highly recommend checking it out! 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Voltron or its characters, and I am in no way affiliated with Dreamworks. I’m just a huge Voltron fangirl who has always secretly wanted to write a zombie apocalypse AU and am finally indulging myself.

Lance would never get used to the silence. 

Before all of this he’d never understood that saying about silence being deafening, but he sure as hell got it now. It didn’t seem to matter how much time passed. It had already been four years since the outbreak, since the world went to chaos, and it still wasn’t any easier to bear. 

Out of everything that had changed it was what bothered him most. Not the ever-shifting ruins of civilization that crumbled more with every passing day. Not the bodies strewn across the broiling asphalt, abandoned and decaying. Hell, he wouldn’t really even mind the emptiness of the city if it wasn’t so damn _quiet_.

With a family as big as his, the McClain household was always full of noise. The drone of the television echoing from distant rooms, the dozen floorboards that creaked whenever someone walked over them, or his sisters blasting music loud enough to shake the house. Even the sounds of distant arguments, when his siblings would shout and bicker until their Mamá finally had enough. 

To him, those were the sounds of _home_. They were a comfort, filling their house with energy and life. 

Silence meant being alone, and Lance hated it. 

And okay, he knew he wasn’t _actually_ alone. Hunk was somewhere close by, but it was easy to feel that way in the enormous aircraft hangar, with its sprawling size and high ceilings, surrounded by abandoned crafts already starting to rust from disuse. Their metal bodies loomed over him, casting long, disjointed shadows from the sunlight streaming in through the broken skylights. 

They were rusted and damaged, some of them missing parts thanks to looters or Lance and his friends, but he still recognized most of them. If asked he could spout off the model names and the top Garrison pilots who’d mastered them, never mind that most of those pilots were probably dead or turned by now. 

It was hard to remember the glory and grandeur that had attracted Lance to becoming a pilot all those years ago. He remembered seeing flight tests and formation drills on the news, sitting starry-eyed in a dog-pile on the floor with his siblings, all of them climbing over each other for the best view of jets leaving streaks across the sky. He remembered wanting to know what it was like to fly. Spending long, sticky summer days laying in his backyard staring into the endless blue, wondering how it would feel to watch the colors on the ground blur like the clouds did as they moved. 

Lance felt none of that childish wonder looking at the aircrafts now. 

Now they were permanently grounded, knocked out of their locking mechanisms and sticking crookedly into the air like a sea of metal tombstones. He felt like he was standing in a cemetery, the silence and stillness mocking the sheer amount of life the Garrison used to house. Now the crafts sat decaying into solemn, cold reminders of what the hangar once was. 

Of what the human race could have been. 

Heaviness weighing on his shoulders, Lance physically shook himself out of his thoughts, tearing his eyes from the nearest jet and refocusing on the present. In the oppressive silence of the Garrison Flight School’s empty campus, each day he found it harder and harder to draw his mind away from those distant days, tinged in the sights and smells and sounds of home. He was supposed to be on lookout duty, but when it was quiet like this, when his friends weren’t around to be a distraction and a comfort, it was nearly impossible for him to resist getting lost in memories. 

He was no help searching for the parts they needed. Pidge had demanded they find a few specific items this time: a something-or-other oscillator and circuit boards that Lance was liable to break if last time was anything to go by. So while Hunk tore through the aircrafts Lance kept watch over the hangar from the flatbed of his beat up, dusty blue pickup truck.

Her name was Blue because he was clever as fuck, and Lance loved her probably more than was healthy for an inanimate object. Her chipping paint and worn exterior oozed more charm than most actual people, especially since the outbreak, so really he couldn’t be blamed. 

Risking going back to his old house for her had turned out to be the wisest decision he’d made in a laughably long time. Blue made it much easier to get around the Garrison’s huge campus, especially when they were lugging parts and equipment back to base, and it never hurt to have her enclosed seats to duck into when they ran into infected. Not to mention it would take _forever_ to reach the city without her. 

Blue’s bed creaked as Lance spun in an idle circle, shifting his weight more than necessary just to hear the metal sigh underfoot. The familiar sound grounded him a little, but it still wasn’t enough to lift the weight of the silence upon his shoulders. Irrationally he wished he could leave her running and let the soothing, slightly off-kilter _rumble-clang_ of her engine fill the open air, but they couldn’t afford to waste the gasoline. 

Lance tore his gaze away from the cold aircraft corpses around him and instead searched the far end of the hangar, brows furrowing in dismay when he failed to spot Hunk’s silhouette. He tried to remember what crafts Hunk had said he was going to check, but Lance hadn’t been listening, already lost in thought. There were a good thirty jets of all makes, models, and sizes in the hangar, and with how much Lance knew of their inner workings, every one of them could be a possible target for Hunk’s searching. 

There was something unnerving about not even knowing what direction his friend had wandered. Somehow the knowledge that Hunk was somewhere in the general, possibly close or possibly not-so-close vicinity did little to take the edge off of Lance’s rising nerves. 

They all worked hard to keep the Garrison clear of infected. It’d been over a week since their last encounter with any runners, and, thank fuck, even longer for clickers, so rationally Lance knew that his unease was unfounded. No matter how fiercely he repeated that to himself, though, the hairs on the back of his neck were unperturbed. 

If there was one thing Lance had learned, it was that infected were _everywhere_. A clicker could fall from the fucking ceiling and land on his head right now and he’d only be marginally surprised. Safety was a luxury no one in the goddamn world could afford anymore; he hadn’t felt truly safe in four years. The fact that they were scavenging to survive on the edge of an abandoned, decimated city was just icing on top of the insecurity cake. 

“There’s nothing to worry about,” he told himself verbally, desperate to fill the silence with _something,_ even his own voice. The words came out weak to his own ears, and his paranoia wasn’t buying it.

A flicker caught the corner of his eye and he whipped around, nearly slipping from how little traction his worn shoes got on Blue’s bed, only to breathe out a stilted sigh when he was met with a dancing shadow on the wall, cast by a strip of fabric snagged on one of the broken skylights. He muttered a soft but fierce “ _fuck_ ” and pressed a hand to his racing heartbeat.

That was the other thing about the silence that Lance had grown to hate: the inescapable paranoia it brought. Despite his certainty that the hangar was clear of infected, despite the comforting weight of the assault rifle strapped to his back and the pistol in his belt holster, the thickness of the quiet crawled under his skin and festered like a disease just as bad as the cordyceps. 

He willed himself to relax as he tugged a hand through his hair. “Chill, Lance. If you keep jumping at shadows Hunk’ll see you and he’ll tell Pidge and you’ll never live it down.” He knew from experience that Pidge could also be just as horribly relentless as the cordyceps when it came to laughing at him, so best not to give her an opportunity. 

He tried drumming his fingers on the handle of his pistol, but it wasn’t enough. The urge to talk built in the back of his throat until he had to physically bite his tongue. Pointless talking was only good for drawing unwanted, deadly company, but he’d been born a chatterbox and it was a bad habit that even the apocalypse couldn’t seem to break. His Mamá used to say that his baby babble had never worn off; every time there was a second of quiet he’d be off again. 

Now, with Hunk’s presence and any noises surrounding it so distant, Lance’s tightly-wound nerves threatened to drive him mad.

It was enough to make him wonder what the fuck was wrong with him. His lips pursed and he frowned at himself. 

He wasn’t normally so antsy when they went out scavenging. They’d done it enough times that it was second nature, and the Garrison’s campus was the safest place in the city with how often they patrolled the area around their home base. The Garrison’s four aircraft hangars were all second homes to them by now. 

But there was something...off. His roiling stomach couldn’t mean anything else. It was his natural, internal danger-o-meter rioting in his insides. They’d all learned to trust his uncanny sixth sense, and right now it was on high alert, screaming at him that something wasn’t quite right even though he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. 

He wished he could find Hunk and get the hell back to base, but Pidge would actually kill them if they came back empty-handed again. Lance would take a pack of clickers over an angry Pidge any day. 

With no other options, he fell back on the one thing that always helped to calm him down. 

Loud as he dared, Lance started to hum. 

It was an idle thing, with minimal effort put into actually sounding decent, almost an involuntary reaction to the unease prickling up his arms and raising goosebumps in its wake. His voice was soft, but still carried in the vastness of the hangar. With every note he felt the thread of tension in his shoulders lessen. The lullaby’s comforting tune wrapped him in an embrace warm with memories, and he had to fight to keep himself in the here and now. 

He remembered waking up from nightmares as a child, gangly limbs tangled in blankets and skin sticky with sweat. He remembered how his Mamá would always be there as soon as he awoke, as if she had her own sixth sense about when her children were in need of her love. 

He could still feel the phantom touch of her fingers as she soothed over his brow and brushed through his hair. He could still hear the comforting words she’d whisper in their mother tongue, her voice enough to drive the fear from his mind. 

His throat closed with emotion, but he fought through it and continued the song. If he let himself drift with the sound he could almost pretend his own voice was the soft music his mother used to play while cooking, or the background music of the cartoons the twins watched every morning. 

It was almost enough to make him feel like he was home again. 

It wasn’t the same. It would never be the same. But it was close enough; a gossamer thread still connecting him to his family. 

Lance’s eyes wandered the hangar as he waited, idly repeating the gentle tune over and over and pinching the tops of his hands every time he caught himself drifting. The aircraft skeletons were still giving him the heebie-jeebies today, so he diverted his gaze upward. 

Halfway up the towering walls of the hangar was a walkway that encircled the room. The floor of it had mostly crumbled away, but the metal railing that would’ve kept people from falling remained intact all the way around, and Lance’s eyes followed the unbroken line in a lazy circle of the room. His attention lingered on the protruding glass windows of the control room that had released the locks on all the aircrafts when they were still in use.

The control room also undoubtedly had a full view of the entire main floor. It would be much easier to keep watch from up there, but the hall that led to the room was completely blocked by rubble, and the staircases up to the walkway had collapsed.

The Garrison had been spared a good amount of the destruction that befell the rest of Plaht City in the wake of the outbreak, but it hadn’t been entirely unscathed. Pidge had been so livid when they’d realized they had no way to get inside the control room that she’d hurled a wrench through one of the windows, allowing a mocking glimpse at the tech within. 

A chuckle interrupted Lance’s song at the memory, and he shook his head, humming tapering off as his gaze passed the control room and trailed the railing the rest of the way. At the front corner of the hangar the metal swirled downward a few feet in the beginning of a spiral, following where the staircase used to be, before it abruptly ended far above the hangar’s main floor. For a few seconds his gaze kept going and Lance started to turn away, but then his eyes caught on something and he did a double-take.

It wasn’t until he finally found what had been bothering him that he realized he’d been looking for it in the first place. 

A pile of rubble sat beneath the spiraling railing in the corner of the hangar directly to his right, huge chunks of concrete that used to be the staircase up to the balcony forming a massive, impassable pile. There was a door behind the heap, but they’d never been able to access enough of it to get through. 

Lance’s eyes narrowed, disbelieving, before a grin spread across his face. 

The rubble had shifted. And not just shifted—a few of the larger pieces at the bottom were broken, allowing the pile to move enough to reveal the full upper half of the door beyond. 

He _knew_ something felt off! All of his apprehension left him in a rush, a surge of curiosity filling the emptiness left behind, and he opened his mouth without even thinking about it. 

“Hey, Hunk?”

A harsh clatter and muffled yelp followed Lance’s voice ringing through the open air, and Lance laughed, picturing the big guy starling bad enough to whack his head or drop all his tools. There was an _oof_ and more shuffling, and finally Hunk emerged from the far side of the hangar. 

His eyes were comically wide as he clutched a flat slab of metal to his chest. “What? What is it, what’s trying to kill us?”

“For once? Nothing. Shocking, I know,” he chuckled. “I think some debris shifted,” Lance explained, nodding towards the corner. “I might be able to get through that door in the corner behind the Jayhawk.”

Lance leapt over the low walls of Blue’s flatbed. A cloud of dust wafted across the floor from the impact of his shoes, the sound ricocheting up to the high ceiling. “I’m gonna check it out. Keep an eye on my best girl for me, yeah?”

Even from a distance he could see the alarm unfold across Hunk’s face. His grip on the metal slab tightened enough to show in the hunch of his shoulders. 

“Uh, not to rain on your parade, but that sounds like a really bad plan? We have no idea what’s back there. There could be a swarm of infected, or the building could be unstable—”

It was nearly impossible to stop Hunk’s nervous tirades once they’d started, so Lance cut him off before he could get going. “Exactly, dude!” He plastered on a smile and waved his arms around so his excitement would read from a distance. “We don’t know what’s back there! I could find the sunnyside oscillator Pidge needs, or something even better!”

Hunk paused, the concern on his features tinging with confusion. “You mean the sinusoidal oscillator?”

“Yeah, that.”

“You don’t even know what a sinusoidal oscillator looks like.” 

Judging by his voice Hunk was probably looking at him with exasperation, but hey, Hunk was pretty far away, and if Lance couldn’t _really_ see it then it didn’t count, right? Lance rolled his eyes and walked around to Blue’s driver seat. 

“Details, details. I know what an _opportunity_ looks like, and I’m not passing this one up.”

For security’s sake he made sure that Blue was all locked up and left the key in its designated safe spot inside the sunglasses holder attached to the roof on the driver’s side. As an afterthought he removed his rifle and its holster from his back, laying it down carefully in Blue’s bed. He didn’t relish the thought of leaving his trusty weapon behind, but he wasn’t willing to risk damaging it by trying to squeeze it through the doorway. His pistol would have to be enough. 

Free of the heaviest part of his usual burden, there was a lightness in his steps as he headed over to the pile of rubble. The second the sole of his shoe so much as grazed a piece of concrete, though, Hunk protested with renewed vigor. “Lance, come on, are you really gonna go climbing on that? Ugh, what am I saying, of course you are. That really does not look sturdy, you’re gonna hurt yourself!” 

Hunk kept going, but that was all Lance heard because, lucky for him, outside distractions were fairly easy to tune out when he was concentrating on not slipping and impaling himself on stray railing pipes. 

Thanks to the newly broken slabs at the bottom, the pile only came up to his knees now, unlike before when it had been nearly chest height. He gingerly prodded at a few places with his foot before he found a slab on top that didn’t wiggle when he applied pressure, and he made a victorious sound before hefting himself up so he was standing on top of the heap.

“Who knows what we could find!” Lance talked jovially over Hunk’s worrying, speaking between slow, careful steps as he crossed onto another slab. This one rocked slightly, but caught on something underneath before Lance lost his balance. “There could be a supply closet back there that’s chalk full of high-tech doohickeys. Or ammo! Oh oh oh, or what if it’s like, a locker room for the pilots and stuff?”

Considering his precarious situation he refrained from bouncing up and down in excitement, though just barely. His eyes sparkled at the thought of his old Garrison cadet uniform. He’d never appreciated it in the moment, but it was the little things he missed most of all.

“Orange was so my color,” he sighed wistfully. “Plus I looked totally amazing in uniform.”

“I really don’t think that’s worth risking your life for!” Hunk shouted, and Lance paused long enough to throw him a look over his shoulder. 

One of the nice things about holing up in the Garrison was undoubtedly the dorm rooms and all the personal belongings that were left behind. Evacuations had happened so fast there hadn’t been any time for anyone to pack their bags; most of the dorms still had at least half of a wardrobe in their closets, and yeah, they were puny, military-grade closets, so that wasn’t really saying much, but Lance sure as shit hadn’t complained. 

He and Pidge had made out pretty well after they scoured every bunk, but Hunk had been less lucky. Lance was a fairly standard size and Pidge was small enough to fit into almost anything, using rubber bands or frenzied, mildly terrifying scissor skills to make clothes that were three sizes too big fit her well enough to be tolerable. Unfortunately for Hunk, the same didn’t really work in reverse; cutting open seams only made him more vulnerable, just another inch of skin made that much easier a target for a scratching, slobbering infected. 

Two years later and now even he and Pidge were running uncomfortably low on wearables. Clothes went laughably fast when they had to be burned every time they got so much as a whiff of infected guts on them. 

“Are you telling me you’re _not_ dying for a change of clothes?” Lance asked, brows raised expectantly. Hunk kept up a stubborn face for about five seconds before he gave up, sighing so hard that he physically slumped. “Mmhmm, that’s what I thought.”

“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” Hunk said, but Lance turned his focus back to scaling the mountain of rubble, his tongue poking out in concentration. He’d advanced a few steps when he heard Hunk’s footsteps coming towards him. Rolling his eyes, he made a shooing gesture with his fingers as Hunk pulled one of his Nervously Exasperated faces. 

“ _Or_ ,” Lance launched seamlessly back into his daydreaming, keeping his eyes down to watch where he was going—and to hide how his grin sharpened with mischief, “it could even be a kitchen, or food storage or something.”

A few seconds passed in silence before Hunk made a high-pitched sound, almost an aborted whine, and Lance knew the buy guy’s starving palate couldn’t resist that temptation. He didn’t look back at him, but as Lance continued to pick his way towards the door he could picture the indecision warring on Hunk’s face. 

Finally Hunk groaned in defeat, and Lance sensed a little bit of self-hatred and a lot bit of Lance-aimed hatred in the sound. “Fine, alright, but as much as I miss good food please don’t risk your life for it. Just—” Hunk hesitated in a way that Lance knew meant that he was frowning. “Be careful, Lance.”

The genuine concern in his friend’s words made his emotions stir, but he summoned his signature grin to cover it up. “Ye of little faith, Hunk. When am I ever not?”

The answering silence made Lance puff out his cheeks in indignation. He blew a raspberry at his friend for good measure. “And thanks for your generous blessing, but we both know that I was gonna do it either way.”

“Lance, I love you, but you _are_ the cat that curiosity killed.”

And, well, if Hunk wasn’t asking for the cheeky wink and _meow_ Lance threw over his shoulder, then he didn’t know his best friend very well. 

Hunk’s footsteps sounded again, this time moving steadily away. “Just shout if you need me, okay?” he called, his voice fading as he headed back into the bowels of the hangar. “But like, shout something weird if it’s infected, just so I know. I don’t wanna run in and not be ready to kick butt, you know? Something like ‘pineapple,’ or ‘pizza,’ or ‘calzone.’ Aw man, now I’m hungry for lunch.”

Lance breathed a laugh, the sound quickly devolving into a yelp when he took a large step over a particularly sharp shard of concrete, losing his balance on the other side and pinwheeling his arms until he tipped into the door shoulder-first. He connected with an _oof_ , precariously balanced on a teetering slab of concrete and hands braced on the cool metal of the mysterious door. 

Hunk immediately poked his head back around the nose of one of the aircrafts, like he’d been waiting close by for Lance to inevitably hurt himself. 

“You okay?” Hunk called, and Lance pouted. 

“ _Yes_ , Hunk, I’m _fine_. How about we use ‘a spicy meatball’ for the infected signal?” he shouted in a purposely terrible accent, and Hunk’s disgusted groan echoed loudly as he disappeared again. 

“Ugh, I did not need that mental image!”

Lance shook his head when Hunk’s complaints faded completely, pout turning into a fond smile. “Alright,” he muttered as he turned his attention to the door. “High-tech doohickeys, here I come.”

Upon first glance the door was nondescript: just a solid, silver slab with a handle on the left side. There was a hand scanner on the wall next to the handle, but thankfully there was no way it was operational with the huge crack that split its surface. Lance looked up and saw lettering above the door that he’d never noticed before, and a downright giddy grin split his face. 

A worn metal plaque above the doorframe read ‘STOREROOM 3A: PARTS, JET CLASS.’

“Pidge is gonna love me,” he whispered.

After a bit of wriggling Lance wedged himself between the door and the rubble. A jagged edge of stone dug into the backs of his calves through his jeans but he ignored it, giving thanks to his own stubbornness for being one hell of a motivator. His determination to get into this room and hand-deliver Pidge an armful of fighter jet guts pumped through his veins effectively as adrenaline. She’d absolutely still give him shit at every opportunity even after landing a score like this, but at least when she did, he’d be able to lord the snazzy tech over her head—literally and metaphorically. 

Angling slightly, he braced one arm on the wall and heaved the handle with the other. Metal scraped against concrete with an ear-splitting screech that had his ears ringing long after the echoes faded, but it was well worth it when he stuck his arm into the gap in the doorway, just big enough to be Lance-sized. 

“Okay,” he huffed, eyeing the opening with determination. “Suck it in, this’ll be tight.” 

By the time he squeezed through and stumbled into the room on the other side he’d earned a scrape on his cheek and more than a few bruises across the backs of his shoulders for his struggle. Lance’s back popped as he stretched with his arms above his head and he knew he’d feel that in the morning, but, as he took in his surroundings, he couldn’t bring himself to give a fuck. 

“Holy crow...”

The room was much smaller than the hangar but still about half a football field in size. It also didn’t share the hangar’s domed ceilings and skylights. Instead a grid of tube lights were inset into the ceiling, a few missing here and there and a few cracked through and dangling, wires spilling from inside like sinew from a severed limb. The dull gray of the walls was interrupted only by white numbers that Lance assumed corresponded to docks for crafts in the hangar. 

Most importantly, though, the room was _full of parts_. 

Cordoned off bays in front of each painted number were stocked with piles and shelves. Lance was nowhere near the tech whiz that his friends were, but he knew enough as he began wandering the aisles to recognize a few things, mainly and arguably most excitingly, spare _external_ parts. Pieces like wings and wheels were too difficult and labor intensive to remove from aircrafts, so despite how useful they could be, they were always left behind.

It was such a beautiful sight that Lance wiped a joyful tear from his eye. From just a precursory glance he knew that Hunk would absolutely want to come back with Pidge and scour each and every shelf. He really should go back and tell the big guy the good news—especially since he had no clue how they were going to get any of the bigger shit out of this room, that was definitely A Problem they would have to deal with later—but Lance was overcome with the undeniable urge to _explore_. He took another step further in, his kid-in-a-candy-store urges arguing with the paranoia born from the last four years. 

He was cut off from Hunk here, but Lance rationalized that it _should_ be totally safe. There was no way any infected squeezed through the door like he had, so Lance was about 99.99% sure that there was no way any infected could get in. 

That fact allowed his earlier worries to trickle away. He knew there was an awed grin on his face as he continued wandering, leaning over the metal rails that blocked off each section, poking behind large machinery to glimpse the shelves of small parts that lurked beyond. 

As he wandered farther from where he came in, Lance discovered that the room was set up in a simple, numbered grid. He prided himself on his excellent sense of direction, but he certainly wasn’t complaining about the storage room being naturally easy to navigate—unlike literally everything else in the goddamn city. Not having to keep careful track of where he was going allowed him to take in every last inch that he walked past. 

The entire room was oddly pristine, in stark contrast to the state of the hangar just outside. Aside from the layer of dust blanketing everything and hanging in the air like fog, nothing was broken or overturned. It was clear that no living thing had been in this room for a long time. 

Pausing in front of a storage bay that housed only one item—a massive _something_ that he assumed had to be an engine for one of the larger aircrafts—Lance admired the machinery with awe. He wondered how much power it could generate, and, more interestingly, how the fuck the Garrison got it into this room in the first place since there was no way it could fit through the door. Maybe the ceiling panels could open to lower down larger parts? Too bad he’d never gotten to see it. 

There was so much to look at that Lance’s attention flittered around endlessly, barely catching on one thing before moving on to the next. He spent five minutes scrutinizing every single tidbit of the storage bay across from the mammoth engine before he turned on his heel—

Only to freeze in place, going rigid when he noticed something on the floor just a few feet away. 

Breath caught in his lungs, Lance leaned down, squinting at the outline of it. There was no way. It couldn’t be...

He tried to rationalize it away, but there was no denying what was staring him in the face: a spot where the dust had been disturbed. It was just to Lance’s right, near the opposite corner of the storage bay from where he’d come from. 

A footprint. 

No, _footprints_. Panic lurched up his throat when he realized there was a trail of them leading around the side of the bay he was standing in front of, disappearing out of sight. 

_Fuck_. Of course the universe had to bite him in the ass with that last .01%.

Standing frozen, Lance strained his hearing for the shamble of a runner’s gait or the echolocating call of clickers, but he was only met with oppressive silence. It overwhelmed him, suffocating him with uncertainty and fear, and suddenly all of his apprehension came crashing back onto his shoulders. He almost wished to hear the manic shrieks of infected on the prowl if only to be rid of the terror of not knowing what he was dealing with. 

He should call for Hunk but there was no way to do so without drawing attention. Even if he somehow miraculously heard Lance from so far away, there was no way he could squeeze through the door fast enough to help before Lance was run down or overwhelmed. 

His brows pinched, remembering what Hunk said—or hadn’t said—about his claim of always being careful. Damn, was he really that predictable?

Every muscle in his body tensed as he moved to follow the trail. Automatically he drew his pistol and held it at the ready, the weight of it a small comfort against the fear pounding through his veins. 

He only made it a grand total of two steps before a rustle sounded behind him and he spun back around, eyes flickering along the outline of the enormous engine and mentally scrambling to remember places where he could take cover or put some distance between himself and infected. Lance took slow, silent steps, pistol trained on the engine as he approached, ears straining. 

Another rustle. Something shifting, the subtle sigh of moving fabric. 

His heart picked up even faster. He’d never known infected to be stealthy, but maybe this was the third stage of the cordyceps. It was rare, so much so that he’d never encountered it before, and capable of moving silently, sneaking up on unsuspecting prey. Through his hammering heartbeat and panicked thoughts, Lance totally blanked on what they were called. 

A shadow behind the engine moved just so, like a snake slithering along the ground, and the term came to him in a jolt of terrified clarity. 

‘ _Fucking stalkers!_ ’ Lance thought wildly, just as something leapt out from behind the engine and charged straight at him. 

All he saw was a flash of black and red. The thing closed the distance before he could even process what he was seeing and grabbed the front of his shirt, shoving him back into the face of the engine. Lance’s head smacked into rigid metal and he yelped, pain shooting across his shoulders and down his spine. His life flashed in the stars in his vision, a movie he was too familiar with by now. 

He braced for pain but it never came, and it took a long moment for Lance to realize he wasn’t dead yet. Opening his eyes—when had he closed them?—he blinked hard until his vision stopped swimming. 

When it did, he stared straight into a pair of hard, stormy eyes, and the breath he’d just managed to catch left him in a rush. 

Briefly Lance thought that he must be dead. The infected in there with him had killed him already and he was glimpsing heaven in those eyes. Either that or this was some pre-death vision that he was hallucinating to make his last few seconds more bearable, covering the gruesome face of an infected with a mirage of beauty. 

He wasn’t sure which option was more tragic. Either way, he took a moment to be grateful for the vision he’d been granted before his untimely demise, because Lance acknowledged that there was no way that it could be real. 

The thing that gripped his shirt hard enough for the bunched fabric to leave bruises wasn’t an infected. It wasn’t a shrieking monster ready to rip out his throat with its teeth. 

It was a boy. A very human, very _gorgeous_ boy. 

Stunned and still half convinced he was seeing things, Lance’s immediate thought as he took in the person who’d assaulted him was that his eyes were far from the only beautiful thing about him. He was just under Lance’s height, wearing a dingy red jacket and black fingerless gloves that ended an inch below his wrists. A red bandana was tied around the lower half of his face, and Lance mourned that he couldn’t see his features entirely. His imagination took that as permission to run away with visions of a cut jawline and sloped cheekbones, and his heart gave an unsteady thud. Dark hair framed the boy’s face and softened his vicious glare, but Lance was helplessly pinned beneath the piercing intensity of his eyes. 

They were the prettiest eyes Lance had ever seen. His irises were an impossible gray-violet and flecked with gold, like the gold shavings fancy chefs put on top of truffles and steaks on the cooking shows he used to watch with his family. Put together with everything else, it was enough to steal the air from Lance’s lungs and to drain the fight from his body. 

At least until the frigid edge of a knife pressed against his neck. 

_That_ catapulted him right back to his senses. Lance’s own eyes bugged and he tore his attention away from those mesmerizing irises, his back going ramrod straight against the painful edges of the engine. He swallowed hard and felt the bob of his throat prickle against the blade. 

Lance’s body acted on its own accord, his brain barely registering his own actions when he raised his arms in surrender, pistol dangling forgotten from his thumb. He knew he should fight back, should shove the boy away— _something_. But once it rested at the base of his throat the stranger made no move to push his knife further, and Lance really didn’t want to give him a reason to try. He wasn’t convinced he could move fast enough to shoot before the knife slashed on the best of days, and his brain really wasn’t functioning properly right now. 

All at once Lance’s world was back to the way it was before the outbreak. All at once he had simply bumped into an attractive stranger at the mall or the park, and it was seriously fucking with his mental capacities. 

The only thing ruining the illusion was the fucking _knife at his throat_. He gave a few hard blinks against the images trying to overlay onto his vision, knowing that if he drifted now he probably wouldn’t walk away from this alive. 

“H-hey, hey, easy!” Lance managed, voice coming out thin in an attempt to speak without moving his throat at all. It was way harder than he thought it would be, but since his body had apparently decided that fighting back wasn’t the way to go, talking his way out of this seemed like his next best option. He fluttered his fingers, the barrel of his forsaken pistol tapping against his wrist and emphasizing his surrender. “Cool your jets, samurai, I’m not gonna hurt you!”

It took a long, tense few seconds for the boy’s murderous glare to falter, and, incredulously enough, Lance was almost disappointed by the dulling of the sparks in his eyes when it did. The boy’s thick brows furrowed as he seemed to take Lance in in return, and confusion overtook what Lance could see of his features. Still dumbfounded, Lance stayed perfectly still, unable to stop his attention from lingering on the stunning contrast between the boy’s dark hair brushing the pale skin of his cheeks. 

Considering how close he was to bleeding out on the floor Lance probably should be panicking, or fighting back, or doing _anything_ other than staring with his jaw hanging open, but he couldn’t move. It was like he’d been struck by the lightning in the storm of Mystery Boy’s eyes. The only part of him that wasn’t completely paralyzed was his heart; his pulse raced with such an erratic combination of fear and fluster that he was shocked the boy couldn’t feel it through his grip on Lance’s shirt. 

The seconds dragged on until finally Mystery Boy’s eyes widened a fraction. In a swift motion he pushed Lance backwards and stepped away, and Lance sucked in a ragged breath when the sharp edge at his neck disappeared. 

Lance sagged back against the engine as soon as he was given an inch. “Yeesh, man,” he choked out when he finally found his voice, free hand coming up to rub at the base of his throat, “that was—h-hey, wait!”

Mystery Boy retreated a few steps and for some reason that made Lance more anxious than the near death experience of the last thirty seconds. “Whoa, hold on a second!” He nearly tripped over his own feet in his haste to stumble forward, following after the gorgeous lunatic as he turned away, but Lance’s fingers barely grazed his jacket sleeve before the boy whipped back around and grabbed Lance’s arm. 

In another blur of movement and colors Lance was on the ground, pistol wrested from his hand and stars exploding before his eyes. He groaned, arm flopping limply to the ground when Mystery Boy let it go. 

Pain throbbed at the base of his skull, distorting his vision as he looked blearily up into the dangerously-narrowed eyes glaring down at him. 

“Don’t try to follow me,” the boy commanded, and punctuated his words by dropping Lance’s pistol to the ground.

Even muffled by the bandana his voice was pitched low and rough, and the thinly veiled threat did nothing to hinder the way Lance’s toes curled at the sound. How was it fair that this guy had _that_ voice _on top of_ those looks? He didn’t even sound winded from the effort of knocking Lance on his ass and _what the fuck how were either of those things even fair?_

Dazed and unable to keep up with his own ridiculous thoughts, Lance closed his eyes against the starbursts dancing in his vision and huffed out a weak laugh. He could do nothing but listen as the boy’s footsteps retreated and faded away. 

“Great, yeah,” Lance wheezed, an inhale rattling in his lungs. He raised a weak thumbs up, even though he knew Mystery Boy was long gone. “Sure, no prob, nice to meet you too, dude!”

Lance let out another groan and resigned himself to just lying there for a bit. There was a pounding building behind his eyes and his left arm stung from his weapon being wrenched away, but the physical sensations were all too easy to ignore in favor of the whirlwind battering behind his ribcage. 

He knew how he _should_ be feeling after nearly being killed: scared, angry, worried that the guy might hang around. But instead, amazingly, _stupidly_ , Lance actually hoped that he did. 

He’d just been knocked flat on his back by the hottest guy he’d ever seen, and yet, said hot guy had kicked his ass in half a second and split before Lance could so much as utter a sentence. It said something about the last four years of Lance’s life that coming face-to-face with an attractive man who wasn’t coated in a deadly fungus was harder to process than a near death experience. 

He knew how to handle mortal peril, but eyes so bright and beautiful that his heart threatened to stop on its own? 

Not so much, anymore. 

Lifting an arm that felt like lead, Lance let out a long, slow breath as he dragged a hand down his face. Of its own accord it stopped over the bunch in his shirt where the boy had grabbed him. There was still a lingering warmth in the fabric, but it was nothing compared to the heat steadily rising in his cheeks. 

“What...the fuck...was _that?_ ” he whispered to the cobwebs on the ceiling.

It took an embarrassingly long time for Lance to pull himself together. Heaving himself up to sitting, he rubbed the back of his head, feeling the beginnings of a lump forming, and glanced around until he spotted his pistol a few feet away. The tangle behind his heart pulled tighter at the sudden realization of how fucking lucky he was. Yeah, the guy had attacked him, but all things considered, that could’ve ended a hell of a lot worse.

He winced as he stood, which devolved into a snort when he saw the outline he’d left in the dust on the ground. Brushing off his butt and the back of his shoulders sent a shower of white spiraling through the air. He stooped to pick up his gun, his gaze lingering on the trail of footprints leading off into the depths of the room. 

All of his previous excitement at exploring was gone. Every fiber of Lance’s being screamed at him to follow, the boy’s warning be damned. It had been months since Lance had encountered another living, breathing person—even if that person had almost killed him, it still made something lonely and gray in his chest _ache_ to see him go. His feet were compelled to follow but he stopped himself, glaring hard at the footprints on the floor. 

He thought of Hunk back in the hangar, none the wiser to the potentially fatal encounter Lance had just had and liable to worry himself into a frenzy if Lance didn’t get back soon. He thought of the literal goldmine he’d just found and how all this stuff would tide them over for who knew how long—it might even be enough to finally get out of this godforsaken city.

Lance thought of the hard edge lurking beneath the beauty of those stormy eyes, the ruthlessness of the guy’s glare, the promise sealed in the kiss of a blade at his throat. 

Lips pressed in resignation, Lance sighed and retraced his own footprints back to the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of my betas commented that “gorgeous lunatic” is the most accurate description of Keith she’s ever read and I actually lost my shit ‘cause like? Yeah. Pretty much. xD
> 
> ALSO idk what it is with me and fics where either Keith or Lance’s name isn’t known for a portion of it but?? Apparently that’s A Thing for me because after writing this in quick succession to my coffee shop AU I realized that like three other plot ideas that I plan on doing in the future also use that mechanic somewhere. BUT don’t worry! This time it’s strictly because they’re actual strangers and will be resolved much more quickly than in my other work, haha. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! Find me [ @casiosiris294 ](http://casiosiris294.tumblr.com/)on tumblr and have a safe and fun-filled Halloween!


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An extra special shoutout to my amazing friends and beta readers, Emily and Rachel! This fic would not be possible without you, so tHANK YOU. YOU GUYS RULE. <3
> 
> I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend, whether you celebrate the holiday or not~

After returning to Hunk and reporting his newly discovered treasure trove, the two of them spent the rest of the day fashioning a pulley system to attach to Blue and tugging the broken concrete away. It was hard, grueling work, but knowing what was behind the door motivated them through the sweat and struggle. 

All the while, Lance couldn’t bring himself to mention his deadly encounter. At first he attributed it to being distracted by their work, and then to his physical exhaustion; they were too busy and he was too tired to go through the whole story and then figure out what the hell they should do about it. 

But the longer the day went on, the more certain he was that it was more than that. 

Words would gather on the tip of his tongue, but before they could escape he would swallow them back, feeling them burn a trail down his throat like he’d drank a gallon of acid. He couldn’t really even put his finger on why—why he held the words back _or_ why they hurt when he did. 

Deep down he suspected it was that pocket of gray in the base of his heart: that same tug of loneliness that had compelled him to follow his attacker now compelled him to at least keep the encounter to himself as a consolation prize. It didn’t make any sense, but he was too exhausted to wrangle with his nonsensical feelings. 

By the time night fell they’d managed to pull enough rubble away to open the door fully and had filled Blue’s bed with their precursory haul. Jet wings and a few smaller sized engines filled up half the truck’s space, while the rest was occupied by four huge barrels of aircraft fuel. Lance tried not to think about them too much as Hunk loaded them behind the driver’s seat. 

Soon enough a blanket of darkness too thick to work through fell over the hangar and they called it a night. It wasn’t until Lance climbed into Blue’s driver seat that a thought struck him with the same force as the car door slamming shut. 

“Did you ever find what Pidge wanted?” Lance asked as Hunk settled in beside him. 

The big guy paused halfway to pulling his seatbelt over his chest. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before his bushy brows creased. “Uhhh,” he drew out, eyes narrowing and staring off into middle distance as he thought. Lance could see him mentally cataloguing everything they’d grabbed and everything he’d seen in the storeroom that they would have to come back for tomorrow. 

“No...?” Hunk finally decided. He side-eyed Lance with a questioning look. 

“Hey, don’t look at me!” he defended. “I don’t know what a singsong oscillator looks like, remember?” 

“Sinusoidal.”

“What _ever_.” He waved a dismissive hand as he started Blue. The truck came to life with the clatter of turning gears and a puff of exhaust out the tail pipe. “That room’s a literal goldmine, there’s gotta be one in there somewhere. Or at least something that could work instead.”

Lance pulled away from the hangar, doing a big U-turn to head back towards the main part of campus. He generally drove slow to conserve gas and avoid making noise that would draw nearby infected, but considering their current cargo, he barely pushed the needle over ten miles per hour. The gate of Blue’s bed was up and locked, but that didn’t stop the fuel tanks from rattling and clanging like they were angry about being transported. Belatedly Lance wished they’d thought to tie them down, but it was too dark to turn back now, so it was with white-knuckled fingers and a feather-light press of the gas pedal that he started back towards their base in Arus Hall. 

Hunk’s nose wrinkled, but it wasn’t aimed at their current driving speed. “That isn’t really how machinery works, Lance.”

“Please,” Lance scoffed. “You and Pidge are like, tech _wizards_. I watched you guys outfit our base, remember? _And_ I’ve seen the kind of shit you guys make when you’re bored.” He flicked a pointed look at his friend. “You think I don’t remember the egg-cracking robot you made freshman year? ‘Cause I remember the egg-cracking robot. I am one-hundred percent convinced that you two can make literally anything work.”

Hunk hummed from his seat. “Thanks, I think? But if I was going to be a wizard I don’t know if I’d want to be a techno wizard. Pidge can have that. I’ll be a food wizard.”

Lance shot him a blank look. “Dude, you’re already one of those, too. I would’ve starved ages ago without you.”

Hunk shook his head vigorously. “No, like, I’d have food powers so awesome that I could conjure up a huge feast whenever I wanted. Every kind of food you could think of!” He gave a grand sweep of his hand, as if gesturing to the imaginary smorgasbord in his head, and Lance laughed. 

“As happy as I am to have found all those parts, not gonna lie, I’m a little bummed it wasn’t actually a kitchen,” Lance agreed.

Hunk groaned pathetically, dragging a hand down his face. “Dude, you have no idea. I seriously don’t want to know what I could be convinced to do for some baked goods right now. You know how much the infected freak me out, but like, if they stood between me and a plate of fresh baked cookies? An army of clickers couldn’t stop me.”

“C’mon, man, knock it off,” Lance whined. The high pitch of his voice mingled with an abrupt and ferocious growl from his stomach. “We haven’t eaten all night and you’re killing me.”

Hunk kept quiet for about ten seconds, a glazed look in his eye, before his stomach rumbled with enough force to make Lance jump. His grip on the wheel jerked and he froze up when he heard an ominous _thud_ from the back.

Thankfully no more noise came, and slowly Lance’s limbs regained their function. Hunk seemed far more concerned with his sudden hunger pangs than the possibility of something having broken or fallen out of the truck, and even though it physically pained some long-buried part of him to hear his friend fantasize about delicious foods and gooey pastries, it was a welcome distraction from dwelling on the cargo precariously piled a few feet behind their backs. He joined in Hunk’s chatter for the comfort of hearing his own voice, and soon enough they were both shooting off rapid-fire lists of all the foods they’d want at their dream feast. 

“It’s not a dream feast without a soufflé,” Hunk said adamantly. “Perfectly risen, golden brown around the edges, firm on the outside but when you cut your fork in it’s just—” Hunk made a _whooshing_ sound, fluttering his fingers. “Like a cloud, you know? All light and fluffy. My aunt made the best soufflés, they were like—like air, but you could _taste_ the softness. I could never figure out how she did it...” 

Hunk trailed off, and something heavy settled into Lance’s stomach. He knew what went unsaid at the end of that sentence. 

_Now I never will_.

Lance’s hand left the wheel and squeezed his friend’s shoulder. Hunk didn’t look at him, but his eyes were glassy as they stared out at the distant, looming shadows of the Garrison’s classroom buildings. They fell quiet, Lance giving his friend space to get lost in memories, his attention fixed firmly on the path ahead to prevent his own thoughts from doing the same. 

It was a slow trip. The hangars were miles away from the main part of campus, enough so that the noise from crafts in the flight range wouldn’t bother teachers in the middle of class or students in their dorms. Normally Lance would cut across the grassy parts of campus in the shortest distance back, but this time he followed the wide, concrete vehicle paths that connected all the buildings in winding trails. Between craters and hills and debris littered everywhere, going off of the paths could be a pretty rough ride, and he didn’t dare agitate the fuel canisters. 

He hated having to transport them at all, but he knew they were too valuable to leave behind, so he shoved aside the unease skittering through his veins and sucked it up. Beneath the rumble of Blue’s engine and the crackle of the tires rolling over branches and stone, every thud from the back was loud as thunder in Lance’s ears. He flinched every time, gritting his teeth and keeping a death-grip on the wheel.

The path turned sharply around the corner of Olkarion Hall, and after he took the turn agonizingly slow, Hunk snapped out of his daydreams and looked over at him, his features going soft when he finally noticed Lance’s tense shoulders and how his knuckles had gone white as a sheet around the steering wheel. 

“Hey man, I can drive if you want,” he offered, but Lance shook his head. 

At least if he was driving he had the distraction of focusing on the road—without it he’d be left to drown in the sounds of sloshing fuel. He managed a halfhearted smile, appreciative of the offer, but he couldn’t bring himself to glance away from the darkness-coated path to offer it to Hunk properly.

“I’m fine,” he said tightly. “We’re almost back.” 

Hunk scrutinized Lance’s profile before nodding. Instead of lapsing back into silence, he launched into a tangent about different kinds of wizards and which ones would be more or less powerful. More than once Lance was forced to go around large debris that blocked the path, fragments of buildings and vehicles pulverized into unrecognizable shapes, and Lance eased Blue off the path with his heart in his throat and plumes of fire burning in his mind’s eye. For those moments Hunk quieted to let Lance concentrate, seamlessly carrying on mindless conversation once they were safe and on their way again. 

The aimless chatter was enough to keep Lance from panicking, and he could’ve cried for the incredible blessing that was Hunk. As it was Lance said nothing in return, only offering an occasional sound of acknowledgement as he focused on making their ride as smooth as possible, but he knew Hunk knew that he was grateful. 

Only once he pulled Blue into the garage of Arus Hall did he finally relent his grip on the wheel, slumping in his seat with a shuddering sigh. Hunk set a gentle hand on his knee, and he tilted his head to smile tiredly at his friend. 

“Thanks, Hunk.”

“No problem.” Hunk’s cheer was back in full force as he unbuckled and opened the door. Lance watched him in the rearview mirror as he rounded to the back of Blue and fiddled with the latch of the gate. “I’ll start unloading stuff, you let Pidge know we’re back before she thinks we got eaten out there.”

“You sure?” Lance asked as he peeled himself off his seat. Even as the words left his lips he eyed the fuel canisters warily, as if they might leap out of the truck and obliterate their base of their own accord.

“Yes, yes,” Hunk urged, waving a hand at him. There was a shrill squeak as he wrestled the latch open, followed by a thud as the gate lowered and clicked into place. Lance opened his mouth again, but Hunk cut him off. “And don’t worry, _I’ll_ actually be careful.” 

Lance made an offended sound for appearances sake, but knew that he couldn’t really argue against that, all things considered. With a huff he unclipped his seatbelt and opened the driver’s side door, turning so he sat sideways in the chair and his legs dangled. His hands were jittery from being clenched for so long, so he took a moment to shake them out before he hopped to his feet. 

“Yeah, yeah, alright.” He stretched his arms above his head until his back cracked. “You just want me to have to tell Pidge we didn’t find what she wanted.”

“Nah, man, I just want _you_ to tell Pidge about _your_ big score, ‘cause I’m nice like that.”

Hunk gave an overly sweet, too-innocent-to-really-be-innocent smile, and Lance laughed as his arms flopped back down. 

“Mmhmm.” Lance shoved his friend playfully on his way to the huge garage door, dodging Hunk’s returned swats. A breeze blew across campus and swept into the open garage, and Lance’s nose wrinkled when he got a gust to the face. Even after dark the summer heat didn’t relent.

A small panel hung on the wall next to the gaping maw of the garage entryway, home to three big, red buttons that Pidge had installed as part of their base’s fortifications. Lance pushed the top one, and the garage door rumbled like a particularly pleased house-cat before lowering slowly, mechanisms churning near-soundlessly. With every inch the heat blowing in dwindled until the door touched the concrete with a muted _clang_. 

As soon as the barrier sealed a wave of calm came over him, settling into his bones like one would nestle beneath a warm blanket. He caught Hunk relax just so, too, as he pushed up his sleeves and climbed up into Blue’s flatbed. Lance dusted his hands together, the clapping sound resonating in the vastness of the garage. 

“O- _kay_ , I’ll be back with President Pidgeon,” he announced. “Don’t have too much fun without her.”

Hunk merely grunted an affirmative as he hefted what looked like an airplane dashboard into his arms. Lance took his leave before he changed his mind and made him help. 

Lance’s footsteps echoed as he strode across the garage. Back when the Garrison was still a functioning military flight school, Arus Hall had been a facility for the Garrison’s security force. A large portion of it was the garage, where patrol cars and maintenance vehicles had been kept. Aside from two non-functioning, heavily damaged ATVs that had been the first victims of their scrounging for parts sitting in a heap near the east wall, the garage was empty of any vehicles that had lived there, the rest of the them long since stolen or destroyed. 

Lance and his friends used it for housing Blue and other supplies; now the garage looked more like a junkyard, with piles of scrap and half-dismantled parts strewn haphazardly about the space, creating uneven pathways across the concrete. Pidge claimed to have some kind of organizational system—something about using size, weight, and the material of each part to calculate a statistical average of usefulness—but it sounded like total bullshit to Lance, so he didn’t bother trying to understand it. It wasn’t like he ever needed to find anything in the chaos anyway. 

He paused in front of the door connecting the garage to the rest of the building. Another panel hung on the wall beside it, and he punched in his six-digit code, whistling idly as the lock hissed and the door popped open. 

The lower floors were warehouse-like in set up, composed of a grid of storage rooms connected by poorly lit, dingy gray halls. Their base was much smaller than the aircraft hangars, but still large enough that it had taken Lance a solid month to get the hang of the layout—especially after they’d sealed off all but one staircase and Pidge had booby-trapped the whole bottom floor in case infected or looters ever got in. He’d had more than one close call with her traps during the first few weeks—and one horrifically embarrassing incident involving a tripwire and buckets of paint—but now he navigated to the staircase at the opposite end of the building with ease. 

It wasn’t until he reached the upper levels of offices and meeting rooms that the building felt like the ones Lance remembered from his days of actually attending the Garrison. The walls were sterile white, broken up only by a thick stripe of black at the center and a thinner stripe of orange near the top, and shaped in a curve, giving the corridors an oblong shape that made them seem longer than they really were. The doors he passed had nameplates bolted to their fronts, denoting the officers and command who’d called them a home away from home. A healthy coating of dust clung to the floor and walls, a salt-and-pepper combination of naturally accumulated white muddled by black ash.

It wasn’t exactly homey, per se, but Lance felt unquestionably safer there than anywhere else in the city. Over the past two years their base had become some sort of second home, though not the same kind as a job or school or best friend’s house. 

It was home like a car stranded on the side of the road in a snowstorm. It was comforting like a closet where a child would curl up when they were afraid—hidden and enclosed and safe. More than enough had happened that day to leave Lance shaken, but seeing the crisscrossing paths of his and his friends’ footsteps in the film on the floor was strangely calming. 

At least here he didn’t have to worry about footprints belonging to rabid clickers or knife-wielding strangers. He snorted at the irony.

It took Lance five minutes of leisurely strolling hallways and climbing stairs before he reached the fifth floor control room. If the entire building was their base, then this room was their command center—it had obviously been as much for Garrison security, too, if the set up they’d left behind was anything to go by. 

A massive table was inset into the middle of the floor, surrounded by seats that were a strange cross between office and armchair and were a hell of a lot more uncomfortable than they looked. A map of campus was sealed beneath the table’s glass top. Each of the four walls were lined with individually manned consoles and screens. Before the outbreak the room had served a similar function as the control tower at an airport, with the added duty of coordinating security efforts around campus: it was where the hangars had received clearance to both dispatch and land aircrafts, and where air traffic had been monitored. 

The surveillance and communication systems between the Garrison’s buildings had all been knocked out in the bombings, but it still served as the perfect gathering place and coordination center for their ragtag band of stubborn survivors. Pidge had rewired a handful of the consoles to monitor the alarms and traps set on the lower floors, and he knew from experience that even though the control room was a floor below where they slept, when the alarms were set off, they were loud enough to wake the corpses in the streets of Plaht City fifty miles away. 

He entered the control room to find Pidge standing on top of one of the consoles along the opposite wall, feet precariously wedged between buttons and dials and hands crammed into the minuscule space between the console’s screen and the wall. Judging from how she growled and cursed, though, she was far from pleased about that fact. 

“Come _on!_ ” she shouted, jerking her torso back with enough force to make the screen creak in protest. “Stupid piece of junk, you better fucking....let...go! _Argh!_ ”

With a furious shout she started kicking at the screen, digging her heel into the groove between it and the console and heaving so hard that her glasses nearly flung off her face. Lance covered his mouth and tried to reign in his giggles, but he could only keep quiet for so long when Pidge was picking a fight with an inanimate object and _losing_. Usually that was his forte. 

After another few moments Lance’s stomach hurt with the effort of stifling himself, and he burst into breathless laughter, clutching his stomach as he tipped into the doorframe. Pidge screeched and craned her neck around, eyes flashing with alarm that was quickly swallowed by righteous fury when she recognized him.

“Lance! Don’t just stand there, you ass! Get over here!”

“Okay, okay,” he relented. He continued chuckling as he crossed the room, planting his hands on his hips when he reached Pidge’s side and leaning around her, peering at where her hands were stuck. This close he caught sight of the angry red scrapes on her wrists from her struggling, and he winced as his amusement dropped away. 

“Yeowch, Pidge.” Angling around her, he wedged his own fingers just above and below where hers disappeared behind the console. “Pull on three. One...two...three!”

They both heaved in unison. Lance pried the device apart enough for her hands to slip free, but Pidge’s victorious cheer quickly turned into a yelp as the force of her pull nearly sent her toppling off the console. She pinwheeled her arms and flung herself the opposite direction, catching herself on Lance’s shoulder. He yanked his hands back before they could be similarly caught, and they both nearly toppled over a second time. 

They steadied each other in turn, the both of them glaring at the offending machine before Pidge hissed. She alternated between blowing on her reddened fingers and shaking them out. 

“Piece of shit,” she muttered, kicking the screen a final time. 

“You okay?” Lance asked. He reached for Pidge’s hands, but she smacked him away. He yelped and she came at him with a vengeance, swatting erratically at his arms, and he could do nothing but scurry away and try to fend her off.

“Hey, I helped you!” he cried.

“ _After_ you laughed! Get back here!” 

She chased him in a circuit around the room before she finally relented, perching on the edge of the map table with a grumble. Still fearful, Lance hung back and caught his breath. 

“What were you even doing?” he asked, mimicking her movements as she continued to shake out her hands in the hope of shaking the stinging from his arms. 

“The screen’s fucked, so I was _trying_ to rewire it,” she huffed, glaring at the console that had trapped her. “I tied it back after I pried it open, but the cord broke.”

He opened his mouth and immediately shut it. A thought struck him and his lips quivered. 

“How, uh...How long were you stuck like that?”

She swiveled her glare back to him. He smiled innocently and she crossed her arms. 

“No comment.” 

Ah, so an embarrassingly long time, then. That explained how frustrated she’d been. Lance snickered and she flipped him off. 

“The hell were _you_ guys doing?” Pidge asked in return. “I didn’t expect you to be gone all day.”

And just like that Lance remembered the matter at hand. The glee of his discovery came flooding back in full force, and he grinned so hard that Pidge scooted backwards in suspicion. 

“Oh, ya’ know, I was just out being the best, as always,” he said breezily, ignoring Pidge’s answering scoff. “Hey, hey, laugh all you want, but I’ve really saved our necks this time!” 

He knew Hunk could do a better job at hyping her up about his find, so even though he’d been the one to discover the storeroom, Lance figured he’d save the juiciest details for her nerdy counterpart. Hopping excitedly, he moved towards the door, waving Pidge along. “C’mon, come check it out!” 

Pidge shook her head at him, pushing up her now tattered sleeves with a huff. “I can’t, I have to fix this,” she said, inclining her chin at the wall console. 

“Okay, but you know it’s way harder to work when you’re in a bad mood, and me and Hunk have just the thing to cheer you up!”

Pidge perked at that. She was almost like a puppy hearing its name called, turning back to look at him with a raised head and big eyes—not that Lance would ever tell her that. 

“Did you find my circuit boards?”

“Nope,” Lance chirped, his cheer unfazed by Pidge’s unimpressed look, “but we found literally everything else you could pretty much ever want.” Before she could question that bold statement, he scurried forward and grabbed her wrist, minding her scrapes as he tugged her off the table and dragged her out the door. 

“Ack—Lance!” She tripped over her own feet as she stumbled to keep up, but Lance was already off, his words racing against his footsteps.

“So you know how we went out to look for the stuff you needed? I was just doing my thing, chilling with Blue and keeping an eye on things, ya’ know, like a trusty lookout does, but something felt off, right? I was just standing there, trying to figure out what it was...”

Lance continued to ramble a mile a minute as he dragged Pidge through their base. She eventually shook off his arm and followed of her own accord, and he used the freedom of his hands to gesture wildly as he gave her a rundown of their morning in the hangar leading up to his big find—leaving out his encounter with Mystery Boy, of course. By the time they returned to the garage, Hunk had gotten most of the loot unloaded, including the fuel canisters. They stepped through the door and Pidge gasped.

“Wha—where the hell did you find those?” she cried. She rushed over and practically plastered herself to the side of one of the barrels. She pressed her ear to it and listened intently. “It’s actually full!”

Pidge climbed on top of the barrel and used the height to survey the other parts they’d brought. Her hand was perched on her forehead as if shading her eyes, and her feet kicked idly, occasionally striking the metal of the canister. Lance winced each time, but didn’t comment. At least his friends could actually make use of the stuff. 

“Check it out, Pidge!” Hunk cried, throwing his arms wide and effectively taking over for Lance’s explanation. He launched into a detailed account of the storeroom and Lance was content to sit cross-legged in Blue’s bed, throwing in his two cents and looking smug. 

They’d returned to base sans the parts Pidge requested, but with the promise of more to come on top of what they’d brought back in their first load, she couldn’t have cared less. Just as Lance had thought, Hunk knew just what to say to get Pidge excited; Lance sat there and grinned his biggest, most self-congratulatory smile as the big guy raved about everything he’d seen in the storeroom, watching Pidge’s eyes twinkle.

After unloading Blue and checking the locks on the bottom floor entrances, the trio ascended to the lounge room on the Garrison’s top floor. It was the closest thing to a living room that they had, and housed the only comfortable furniture in the whole damn building. A portion of the roof directly above the lounge had crumbled, leaving a gaping hole in the ceiling that let in moonlight and a soft breeze. 

Lance practically leapt over Pidge’s head to be the first in and flung himself face-down on the torn up couch. Pidge whacked the backs of his legs as she passed him on her way to an arm chair, pulling her feet up onto the cushion and curling into a corner. Hunk trailed in behind them after detouring to the kitchen to raid their food stash. A tap on his shoulder barely made Lance peek out from the cushion, but the second he saw the can of peaches Hunk offered, Lance scrambled up and dug in, tearing into the can with gusto enough to make Hunk chuckle as he sat beside him. 

Silence reigned as they all inhaled their food, but once they’d finished Pidge moved to the arm of the chair so Hunk could sit next to her while they made a plan for returning to the storeroom the following day. The pair talked so fast their lips blurred, going back and forth at the speed of sound, with Hunk listing parts he’d seen followed by them rambling about what they could be used for upon retrieval. 

Lance laid back along the length of the couch after he’d licked clean his sticky fingers, pillowing his arms behind his head. His friends’ techno-chatter was basically another language as far as he was concerned, so he only half listened, eyes unfocused as he stared out the hole in the ceiling. The edges of jagged brick and concrete opened into the clear night sky. 

The security of their base soothed him even as aches and pains from the day’s work made themselves known. As his friends’ voices washed over him he let himself sink boneless into the cushions. Normally he’d chime into their speculation and planning with ideas and theories outlandish enough to get him smacked (Pidge) and sighed at (Hunk), but as exhaustion settled into his bones, the rest of his mind quieted to make room for a very particular thought. 

The night sky reminded him of Mystery Boy’s eyes: tinged violet, flecked in starlight and seemingly infinite. Even the stars winking down at him paled in comparison to their specks of color. Lance had pushed the memories of the boy from his mind during the day, but with Pidge and Hunk’s gradually softening voices lulling him closer to sleep effectively as his mother’s lullabies, he couldn’t fend them off anymore. 

Those eyes had been burned into him. They plagued him every time he blinked, and he welcomed their image as his lids drooped. He let himself drift, wondering what Mystery Boy’s features looked like beneath the cover of his bandana. 

He was on the line between dozing and daydreaming when a _thud_ and a shout startled him, sitting up in a flurry of limbs to find Pidge sprawled on the floor next to the chair, blinking blearily like she couldn’t quite figure out who had dared to put concrete there instead of a mattress. Lance landed next to her when he laughed hard enough to fall off the couch. 

They were all half asleep as they shambled to their makeshift, communal bedroom. Lance stuffed his pistol into the crevice between his mattress and the wall and fell into bed with a blissful sigh. As he drifted off to sleep, the memory of a half-obscured, dangerously beautiful face returned, tinged in the honey and gold of dreams. 

For the first time in a very long time, Lance fell asleep smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit of a quieter chapter to give me the opportunity to introduce the world they're in a bit more! I actually drew out a map of the Garrison's campus to help me keep everything straight in my head, otherwise I would confuse myself and probably go insane xD 
> 
> I'm picturing it more like an actual college campus with a lot of spread-out buildings (classroom buildings, student and teacher dorms, a staff building or two, plus the aircraft hangars), rather than the one huge-ass building it's shown to be in canon. Mainly because it allows the characters to be a lot more mobile instead of endlessly going up and down stairs to get anywhere, haha. And yes, all the buildings on campus are named after canonical planets. ;D 
> 
> Find me [@casiosiris294](http://casiosiris294.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you'd like to chat about Voltron, my fics, or anything else! <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOW, what better way to celebrate the holidays than with an INSANELY LONG chapter. xD Consider it a Christmas present from me to all the other souls out there who are suffering from the travesty that was season 8. SOLIDARITY, MY FRIENDS. AT LEAST WE HAVE EACH OTHER IN THESE DARK TIMES. 
> 
> I forgot to mention it before, but all the characters are aged up in this fic! The outbreak happened when they were their canonical ages (or what I headcanon their canonical ages to be, at least), which was four years ago, making them all four years older! For reference, Lance and Keith are twenty-two, Hunk is twenty-three, Pidge is nineteen, and Shiro is twenty-eight. 
> 
> Another shoutout to my incredible beta-readers for slogging through this beast for me! YOU RULE. <3

Lance used to have good dreams. 

He didn’t remember them often, but he could tell they were good when he woke up with a weightless flutter in his chest and the kiss of the sun on his skin. A deep, subconscious part of him knew that those dreams were about flying, even if he couldn’t conjure the images no matter how hard he tried. 

When he did remember his dreams, they were always the ones about his family. He’d dream of chasing his siblings along the length of Varadero Beach, cooking huge family meals with his mother and older sister, taking his brothers to the pizza shop on the boardwalk to eat their weight in garlic knots. Those dreams always woke him gently, easing him into consciousness like one eased into the ocean waves to acclimate to the temperature. 

Lance didn’t have good dreams anymore. He hadn’t in a long time. He expected it, now, each night when he went to bed, and had given up wishing for otherwise. 

So when he woke with a start, heart hammering and bedding sticking to his flushed skin, he assumed it had been a nightmare. 

He slowly came back to himself as he registered the sheet tangled around his legs and the soft snores of his friends. Sleep-crusted eyes blinked up at the ceiling, just lucid enough to register that he didn’t _feel_ like he’d just had a nightmare. The rabbiting of his heart wasn’t the sort to bring back the phantom sensations of his mother soothing him back to sleep. 

No, this was different. He felt...tense. Too warm all over. Keyed up and too big for his skin. Disconcerted, he moved to try to disentangle the sheet from his limbs.

It wasn’t until he felt a startlingly familiar discomfort in his pants that the dream came crashing back to him. 

Flashes returned with crystal clarity, flooding his mind with images of pale hands clad in black gloves gliding across his body; of a low, gravelly voice panting in his ear; of those _eyes_ looming over him and—

He covered his face with his hands to muffle a groan, cheeks burning. It was too fucking early to be blushing but this was apparently his life now, having wet dreams about hot, probably homicidal men _in the same room as his two best friends, what the actual fuck!_ He sat up enough to peer at Hunk and Pidge’s beds on the other walls of the room, only to flop back down when he was met with stillness from both parties.

Peeking out from between his fingers, he glared down at his crotch. Morning wood was one thing, but _this?_ “It’s the fucking _apocalypse_ ,” he told it in a fierce whisper. “I don’t need _you_ on top of my list of problems!”

Unsurprisingly his dick was undeterred. If anything his pants were more uncomfortable now that he was actively thinking about it. Of fucking course. 

“Cool your jets, Lance,” he muttered, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes and actively ignoring the blooms of fire prickling beneath his skin. “You’ve come too far to be done in by a hot stranger. Get a grip.”

‘ _You could do that_ ,’ his brain piped up, ‘ _or you could imagine_ him _getting a grip on_ your—’

A pathetic whine bubbled in his throat and he smacked a hand to his face to stifle it. “No, no no, nope, not going there, shut up!” he whisper-yelled. 

He was too ashamed to try to slink off and relieve himself. The others would be waking anytime now, and with his luck someone _would_ walk in on him. Hunk had seen him in his birthday suit one too many times over the span of their friendship (Hunk had unfortunate timing coming back to the dorms a few times, and Lance was too proud to ever turn down a dare), and he didn’t even want to _imagine_ the shit Pidge would give him. So, for the second time in two days, Lance resigned himself to laying there and suffering in silence.

Flustered and uncomfortable as he was, he couldn’t deny that even such an embarrassing dream was better than the kind he usually had—the ones that left him thrashing awake with a scream, ears ringing and fingers shaking and tongue thick with the taste of ash and dried blood. He tucked his arms firmly under his pillow as he glared at the ceiling, watching the idle dance of dust motes and focusing on not choking on the dry rasp of hot air in his lungs. 

One of the most undeniably tragic losses of the world going to shit was that of air conditioning. Between cool air and parts they’d needed to keep the infected out, there hadn’t been any choice at all. Having grown up in Cuba, Lance had an easier time with the heat than his friends, but he was used to the sticky, humid heat that blew in from Varadero Beach. 

The heat that came from the city was stale and suffocating. The skeletal buildings amplified it until it broiled the asphalt and felt like sandpaper on his skin, thousands of glass windows reflecting sunlight straight at the Garrison like putting the entire campus under a magnifying glass. From a single breath of it he could tell that it was a horrible day for the amount of manual labor they’d planned. 

The heat was also doing nothing to help dispel the hot and heavy traces of his dream. Only the fear of waking his friends prevented him from grumbling in frustration. 

After a long, agonizing while (probably only a few minutes, but boy did it _feel_ like an eternity), his lingering arousal finally faded, leaving him disgruntled and unsatisfied. Lance sat up in bed and raked a hand through his hair. He was never the first one up, and his morning _problem_ put him in a shit mood, so he didn’t really know what to do with himself. It was early enough that the vibrant shades of sunrise painted the room from the window opposite his bed, and he longed for the days when he would’ve slept in hours later than this. Just another item scratched onto the list of things he missed from before. 

He didn’t want to get up, but he was thoroughly awake now. Even if he wasn’t, he sure as hell wouldn’t trust his overactive imagination (or his too-eager dick) enough to go back to sleep. It was safer to be up and about during the day, so it wouldn’t be long before Hunk and Pidge woke up. 

He probably had just enough time for a pick-me-up. Quietly as possible, Lance extricated himself from his ungodly creaky, dorm-issue mattress and crept down the hall to the nearby bathroom. 

As much as he might bitch about the state of the world, the fact that the toilets still worked did make everything a bit more bearable. He finished his business and scrubbed his hands with the soapy concoction they kept in a bucket beneath the counter. Lance had no idea what was in it, only that it felt totally unlike any kind of hand soap he’d ever used, smelled like a bizarre mixture of the perfume and household cleaner aisles at the convenience store, and that the day it ran out was likely the day that Pidge would die. She’d devised the sudsy brew shortly after they’d settled into the Garrison as their interim stronghold, loudly proclaiming that if he or Hunk got “dick residue” on her tech that she would lock them outside with the clickers. 

Lance knew her well enough to not test the truth of that threat. He always scrubbed his hands twice for good measure. 

After drying his hands he settled in front of the mirror. As he finger-combed his hair he pointedly avoided looking at the subtle bags beneath his eyes and the dullness of his skin, instead noting a thin line of red across his neck with a frown. It took him a moment longer than it should to realize that it was from the day before. 

How had he not realized that Mystery Boy’s knife had drawn blood? His hand shook just so as he lifted it to trace along the mark. It was thin enough that he could barely feel it beneath his finger, and even putting direct pressure on it didn’t bring any pain, but he couldn’t help a hard swallow. 

Even the realization of how close he’d been to dying at the hands of some stranger in the middle of _their_ goddamn territory wasn’t enough to quell the part of him that yearned to look into those eyes again, that buzzed hot and cold all at once at the thought of that strong grip. 

Wow, okay—he’d already been left frustrated once this morning, so unless he wanted to up that number, he needed to stop that train of thought real fast. Shaking out of it, Lance snatched his bottle of skin cleanser from the counter. He’d come in here intending to get his chill on and relax a bit, and that was what he was going to do, damn it. 

Before the outbreak he used to spend half an hour before bed every night going through a rigorous skincare routine, but after everything, pampering himself had immediately fallen to the bottom of his list of priorities. 

Now that he was settled somewhere relatively safe, though, Lance let himself indulge on mornings that he had the time, or when the reality of it all threatened to crush him and he needed cheering up. He had to push the pump of the bottle a few times before his palm filled with foam, and he made a mental note to check how bad the infected were around the pharmacy on Fourth Avenue next time he went scouting. At least the apocalypse meant that he could finally afford the expensive premium brands.

The bubbles were like little bursts of comfort against his cheeks, reinvigorating him and helping to banish any lingering bewilderment from his rough morning. It was such a simple thing, but it was just what he needed, and Lance sighed in contentment as he lathered the scrub over his face. 

It was frivolous, he knew. He should be cataloguing their food stores or checking the barricades or doing anything else that was at all productive with these few peaceful morning moments, but for once, for five goddamn minutes out of his day, he let himself not think about the serious stuff and focus on himself. 

Things like self-care and pampering didn’t mean shit when it came to surviving. His little morning routine wouldn’t stave off hunger or the disease that caused this mess. It wouldn’t set the world right. But it made Lance feel _human_ again.

After the things he’d seen, the things he’d done...sometimes he needed to be reminded that he still was. 

When he was finished he wiped the suds from his face and hands before patting his skin dry. When he looked in the mirror again he already felt a hundred times better. His signature grin came easily, and he shot finger guns at his reflection. 

“Crazy mushroom diseases got _nothing_ on your baby-smooth skin,” he preened, only to shoot his reflection a scandalized expression. “Who, me? I mean you’re right, but still. You flatterer.”

He chuckled, shaking his head at himself and shutting up before anyone caught him talking to himself in the mirror...again. 

He considered doing a second scrub, but decided against it. With the buttload of parts he discovered the day before there was no telling how long it would be before he was able to get back to the pharmacy, so he figured he should ration what he had left. A knock sounded as he squeezed a dollop of moisturizer into his palm. 

“Come in!” Lance called, working the cool cream into his cheeks with small, circular motions. 

The door swung open to reveal Pidge in all her morning glory. Ginger hair poofed around her head in a static-filled cloud, and her baggy, army-green shirt sat as crookedly as her glasses on her small frame, one side of the wide collar bunched at her neck and the other hanging two inches too far down her shoulder. 

She took one step into the bathroom before she caught sight of him and paused. “Please tell me you washed your hands before you did that.”

Lance rolled his eyes, sticking out his tongue. “It’d kinda defeat the purpose if I didn’t. Dirt and grime are _not_ good for your pores.”

Pidge snorted but otherwise didn’t comment, silently planting herself next to Lance before the mirror. For all the shit she gave Lance about other things, Pidge had never made fun of him for trying to keep up with his routine. They all had their coping mechanisms, and his friends respected that this was one of his. There had to be _way_ worse ones out there, so he tried not to feel too bad about it. 

Sure, they’d both yelled at him until his ears rang the one time he’d barely made it back from an attempt at replenishing his stash, but he knew it was out of love more than anything. 

Grabbing the hairbrush off the counter, Pidge began combing her hair out of her eyes. For how short it was it was a surprisingly laborious endeavor. It had hung down past her shoulders when Lance first met her, but she’d cut it off after the outbreak, citing it as a hassle and a liability. 

Lance hadn’t understood until he’d caught sight of the scars on her scalp as she helped him work on Blue one day, laying on her back beneath the car with her head poking out, strands falling back to reveal faded, discolored lines where clumps had been ripped out.

He swallowed against the memory and focused on his own reflection. 

It only took a few strokes of the brush for Pidge to wince. “Fuck,” she muttered, moving the brush through the lock of hair at a new angle only for it to catch in an entirely different spot. “ _Ow_ , damn it—”

Lance sighed dramatically and wiped his hands clean. “Give it here.” 

Pidge grunted her thanks and handed over the brush, staying still as Lance moved to stand behind her. Combined with his height, the vantage point let him pull the brush through her matted hair with much more care, and within a few painless strokes of the bristles through soft strands, Pidge relaxed with a contented sigh. 

He’d never said it, but he loved it when Pidge let him help her like this. It reminded him of when he used to do his little sister’s hair in the mornings to help their Mamá get them all ready for school. He’d mastered almost every style imaginable, weaving ribbons into braids and clipping back the too-short strands that haloed her round face with jeweled hair pins. 

Pidge had never said it, either, but he was pretty sure it was why she let him. 

“You know, this might not happen if you didn’t sleep _on top_ of the machinery,” he teased when Pidge winced again. 

She scowled at him in the mirror. “Yeah, sure, I’ll just _not_ stay up to fix the tunnel doors next time the locking mechanism malfunctions. I’m sure the infected will be thrilled.”

“Okay, fair,” he conceded even as a frown tugged at his lips. Normally he’d at least stay with her when she got stuck fixing a late-night problem, even if he just dozed while she worked. He didn’t remember any alarms going off—had he slept through it? 

The kind of dreams he’d had last night came back to him in an abrupt flash, and okay, yeah, he really shouldn’t have been surprised by that. He pushed the thought away before his blush could show.

Regardless, his older brother instincts revolted against the thought of her being down in the tunnel at night by herself, but Pidge took one look at the lines creasing his brow and smacked a hand backwards, whacking his thigh. 

“Don’t even start,” she said, ignoring Lance’s exaggerated yelp. “I was totally fine and nothing happened. It was too risky to just leave it that way until morning, plus I wanted to get an early start on that storage room. From the way you and Hunk talked about it, we’ll need all day to go through it.”

Not wanting to start an argument, Lance let the subject go. Besides, he’d much rather talk about his fabulous, amazing, incredible find that Pidge may or may not (but totally did) owe him for. 

He leaned in next to Pidge’s head, shooting her a smug grin. “Hell yeah we will! Shiny new tech as far as the eye can see, I’m telling ya’! I think you owe me pretty good this time, Pidgeon.”

“I’m not fixing the arcade game in the break room. It’s a waste of good parts.”

“Oh, come on!” He stuck out his bottom lip right next to her face. She snorted, shoving him away with a hand on his cheek. 

“Nope, not gonna happen, even if I did owe you. Which, since we _all_ need those parts to upkeep our security so we don’t get overrun in our sleep, I don’t.”

“Such little gratitude!” Lance cried, throwing an arm across his forehead. The hairbrush dangled precariously from his fingers. “What happened to the times when kids respected their elders?”

“It’s this thing called the apocalypse. Kills lots of people, fucks up life as we know it, all that jazz.”

Lance put on his best old geezer voice. “Why, back in my day—”

“Lance,” Pidge interrupted with a groan, “either help me with my hair, or get out of the bathroom before I dump the soap bucket over your head.”

He huffed to disguise a laugh. “Fine, fine, hold still.”

The two of them fell quiet as Lance went back to brushing. He weaved his fingers through Pidge’s strands to section them out, gently brushing each one until the bristles glided effortlessly through. By the time he was halfway done Pidge was griping and fidgeting, anxious to get to the storeroom, but Lance shushed her with a pap on the head. 

He only brushed the final section once before Pidge waved him away with an impatient sound. 

“ _Okay_ , that’s enough, time to get going!” she shouted, words devolving into a yelp when she was forced to dodge his grabbing hands. 

“Aww, Pidge, you interrupted me! Now we have to start all over!” Lance lamented, snickering as Pidge squawked. He tried to grab her around the waist, but she was too short and ducked easily under his arms, spinning on her heel and rushing to the door. 

“I’ll give you a princess braid one day!” Lance shouted after her, shaking his fist. 

“Good fucking luck!” Her response was half-muffled by the swoosh of the door, and Lance went back to his moisturizing with a chuckle. 

“Well, since _she_ interrupted _me_ , now _I_ have to start all over,” he mussed to the empty room, squeezing another dollop of skin cream onto his fingers. 

He took his time reapplying his moisturizer, laughing long and loud when Hunk had to hold Pidge back from bodily dragging him out of the bathroom. 

 

~~~

 

Considering the state of the world, it really wasn’t surprising that most days involved some level of physical labor. Regardless of how often that was the case, though, Lance would never stop _hating it_. 

It wasn’t that Lance was _lazy_ , per se. He’d been active before the outbreak, spending long afternoons at the Rec Center swimming even in the dead of winter. Not to mention that keeping up with the twins every day was a workout on its own.

He simply acknowledged that there was a distinct difference between physical activities that were enjoyable to do, and those that were _not_. He didn’t exactly relish the thought of lugging everything they wanted from the storeroom back to Arus Hall, and suspected it would be at least an all day affair. 

Normally Lance would rant and rave his opposition to spending all day loading and unloading Blue. Partially because yeah, definitely not a fun time, and also just to get on Pidge’s nerves and make Hunk smile. 

But if there was one thing that grueling, back-breaking physical labor was good for, it was being a distraction. 

Depressing thoughts were the new world’s commodity. Lance knew himself, and he knew that if he thought too hard he’d fall apart. He could feel the tattered remains of his composure fraying with each thought of his family. It had already been four years. Who knew how long it would be before he saw them again? _If_ he saw them again?

Which was exactly the kind of shit he couldn’t let himself dwell on. At least today’s intrusive thoughts were less depressing, but thinking circles around attractive strangers who were probably crazy or homicidal or both really wasn’t much better for his mental health. 

So yeah, he was glad to have a distraction, even if it was gonna make him sweaty and gross and he’d probably feel it tomorrow, and really, he could think of _much better_ reasons to wake up sore in the morning—

He parked Blue in front of the hangar, waiting for Pidge and Hunk to hop out of the flatbed and head towards the door. Once they both faced away he smacked a hand to his forehead and dragged it down his face. 

This was gonna be a long day. 

The few steps between Blue and the door were all it took for Lance to melt into his tennis shoes. It couldn’t have been much later than 8 o’clock, and the heat was already heavy and thick on his skin. The air inside wasn’t much better; stuffy and stale, the dryness palpable on his tongue. Man, they really picked a bitch of a day to do this. 

By the time he got to the storeroom Hunk was digging through a shelving unit in a storage bay close to the door. One arm held a small collection of parts while the other gingerly sifted through the junk. Pidge was nowhere to be seen, but her near-maniacal cackling echoed off the concrete walls, interspersed with delighted curses and gasps dramatic enough to be his. Lance grinned at the sound. It had been a long time since Pidge had been so happy.

“I knew she’d be hyped,” Lance commented on his way over to Hunk. He hopped over the metal fence that separated the bay from the walkways that crisscrossed the room, coming up behind his friend and leaning against him so they were back-to-back. “She take off like a kid in a candy store?”

Hunk wordlessly shifted to accommodate Lance’s impromptu lounging. “Nah, worse. Like _you_ in a candy store.”

“Yikes.”

Hunk hummed, nudging a shoulder back to bump Lance between the shoulder blades. “And I thought I was excited. Which, you know, I am, but you’re really the only one who can beat her out for enthusiasm when she gets hyped, so.”

Lance nodded as a blur of green and brown whizzed across the opposite side of the room, followed by, “ _Holy fuck_ , is that a Phantom engine? _Hunk! Lance!_ Get the truck! This baby’s coming back with us!”

Lance grimaced. “I reeeeeally hope she’s not talking about the one that’s twice as tall as me and probably too heavy for Superman.” Hunk’s answering groan confirmed his fear, and he huffed out a laugh. “This is what I get for finding all the good stuff.”

Sighing heavily, he stood up straight and pat Hunk’s arm. The big guy whimpered pathetically as he put his pile back on the shelf for later. 

“I think we’re in for the long haul today, buddy,” Lance said. “C’mon, we better catch up before she tries to lift that thing herself.”

Lance led them to the bay with the enormous engine to find Pidge not trying to lift it, but trying to climb it like a fucking jungle-gym. He couldn’t help but join in any more than Hunk could help fretting from the safety of the ground. 

Taking a running start, he leapt at the engine and clung to its side, laughing and grinning as much as the twins in an actual playground. “Race you to the top!” “You’re on!” Pidge cried, and that was all it took for the pair to take off in a flurry of scrambling limbs. 

She was faster but he had the advantage of easily reaching the hand and footholds. He beat her to the top by a hair, but as soon as he settled atop the engine, legs splaying out to either side and dangling over the edges, he caught sight of the distinctly person-shaped outline in the dust on the floor a few feet behind where Hunk stood pleading with them to come down, and his victory was promptly shattered. He felt his face heat up and he whipped his eyes away, deciding that if Pidge saw it he would fling himself off the engine and pray that the landing was enough to finally do him in. 

Thankfully, Pidge was too busy being a sore loser to notice. “Alright, you glory hound,” she complained as she scaled her way to him. Without warning or preamble she then scaled her way onto Lance’s shoulders. 

He had to pinwheel his arms to keep from tipping backwards from the unexpected weight. “What the—Pidge!”

“Oh, oh no—” Hunk’s mother hen-ing tripled, hands fidgeting. “Come on, guys, at least try to be careful! We do _not_ have enough bandages left to treat a broken neck!” 

“It’s not me!” Lance defended through Pidge’s stranglehold. Her ankles locked like a vice at the base of his throat. 

“See if you can get down so easy, hotshot!” She gripped his hair and kicked like she was commanding a dog sled. 

“Okay okay, I’m going, yeesh!”

Once they made it to the ground unscathed there was a mild debate over whether or not they could _actually_ take the giant engine. Neither Lance nor Hunk were willing to break their spines trying to heave that thing anywhere, no matter how vehemently Pidge insisted they try. In the end Hunk threw up his arms and walked away, and the two of them went back to their scouring. At least they were too preoccupied to notice Lance not-so-subtly erase the outline on the ground with the toe of his shoe. 

Lance didn’t really know what was useful and what wasn’t, so as his friends started piling parts up by the door, he took to wandering the aisles. His excitement from the day before returned bit by bit the farther he went into the room. He’d definitely been right to think that this would take them all day; now that they had started digging in earnest, Pidge and Hunk hadn’t even gotten through the first bay. 

Somehow, though, even though he was across the room, the second he picked up a single machine part Pidge materialized out of nowhere, slapping his hand and snatching the machinery back. 

“Ow!” Lance pouted and held his stinging fingers to his chest. “What the hell, Pidge?”

“Sorry Lance, there is no way I’m trusting you with any of this stuff,” she declared, words contradicting her completely unapologetic tone, and he gaped at her. 

“But—but I’m the one who _found_ all this stuff!” he protested, waving his arms in the air. Pidge gave him an unimpressed look. 

“Yeah, and you’re also the one with a track record of dropping very fragile, very rare parts that we need to keep everything running.”

“That was one time!”

“C’mon, Lance, you know that’s a lie,” Hunk piped up from a few bays over, and Lance whipped around to face him, expression screaming betrayal. “It was more like four or five times. Better safe than sorry, right?”

“Besides, that means you don’t have to do any actual work, so shouldn’t you be happy about that?” Pidge insisted. 

“Yeah, man, this is your score! So take a load off and let us do the grunt work as a reward, okay?” Hunk said with an encouraging smile, and Lance couldn’t really argue with that without blowing his cover, so he simply grumbled and crossed his arms, pouting at the floor as Pidge bodily shoved him out of the storeroom. 

Once he was out the door she turned and dashed back into the endless rows, and Lance sighed. He slumped as he walked back to the hangar’s exit, yanking open the enormous, garage-like main door on his way. The screeching metal was almost unbearable, but it was worth it to relieve some of the stifling heat trapped inside the hangar. 

The colors of the sky when he trudged back to Blue told him that morning was creeping closer to afternoon, the sun getting higher overhead and beating down on him with all of its fiery vengeance. He stood propped up against Blue as Hunk and Pidge made trip after trip to and from the storeroom, loading up the flatbed with doodads and thingamajigs that he couldn’t even begin to guess the purposes of. He alternated between looking out over the sprawling terrain of campus and the metal graveyard of the hangar, a frustrated expression etched into his features that his friends no doubt attributed to him disliking the heat. 

Lookout duty was an important job, he knew. But the Garrison’s campus, especially parts like the hangars that their little band tended to frequent, really were the most secure places in the city.

Sure, infected still showed up on their turf, but when they did it was usually back towards their base, on the side of campus closest to the city. It was unlikely that the ones that did amble all the way to the Garrison would find their way so far in. 

Which meant, important as it might be, lookout duty was bound to be _mind-numbingly_ boring. Lance tried to chat with his friends when they wandered outside, but they only stayed long enough to deposit their armfuls. It left his thoughts with plenty of leeway to wander back to the memories—the _person_ —he’d been trying to avoid since his unfortunate morning situation. 

And so his mind cycled between bouts of playing chauffeur. He fought off thoughts of a low voice and pale skin between his friends’ appearances, gluing his gaze to the distant edges of campus and keeping a wary, hopeful eye out for a flash of dark hair. He had to consciously snap back to himself whenever a truckload had to be transported, unable to think about anything other than how hard he was concentrating on not thinking about it. He would never wish for his friends to be in danger, but damn if he wasn’t close to wishing for a run-in with infected just for the distraction. 

By the time they took a break at midday Lance had resorted to singing to himself to keep his thoughts in check. His friends emerged from the hangar and deposited their latest armfuls, but this time didn’t immediately race back inside, and Lance scrambled for his own awareness when he realized.

Pidge climbed into the flatbed and hauled herself up onto the roof of Blue’s cabin. She flopped onto her back, her splayed legs nearly kicking Lance in the face where he was leaning on the truck’s side. 

“Hey hey, watch the goods!” he complained, shoving Pidge’s foot aside only for her hand to land on the top of his head. He could feel the dirt on her fingers through his hair follicles, and he jerked away with an indignant sound. Her only answer was a drawn out groan. 

“You can say that again,” Hunk said as he perched on the edge of Blue’s lowered gate. He wiped a sleeve across his brow, sighing as he relaxed.

“If I wasn’t so happy I’d be dead,” Pidge informed them, arm flopping across her stomach when Lance was out of reach. Lance just snorted.

“Still don’t want me to help?”

“Nope!” 

He pouted and crossed his arms, settling back again by Blue’s rear tire. “Really feeling the love here, Pidge.”

Her face wasn’t visible from the way she was laying, but Lance saw the motion of her eye roll through her entire body. “You’re a big, dumb, dramatic klutz just like my brother, how could I not?” she said, and even though her tone was dry, the words sent a wave of warmth through him. Technically those weren’t compliments, but being compared to Matt in any way was Pidge’s highest form of praise. 

Lance grinned. “Aww, you do love me!” he sing-songed, reaching out to pinch her ankle. She kicked at his hand, but he could tell it was with less force than usual. 

“Shut up,” she muttered, and Lance and Hunk both laughed. 

“So, how many bays have you gotten through?” Lance asked. Pidge groaned again.

“Only about ten,” Hunk answered. He gave a tired smile. “I haven’t counted them all ‘cause I’m honestly kind of afraid to know, but I think that’s like...maybe a third of the way through?”

“There’s so fucking many,” Pidge complained, elbows jutting up into the air as she dragged her hands down her face. “It’s great, but _fuck_.”

“That’s about right, yeah,” Lance agreed. He’d had the same thought the night before when he and Hunk had been deciding what to take back first. “Think you can do it in a day?” 

Hunk’s expression dropped. “Probably not. Even if we do, we should go through it more than once just in case. What do you think, Pidge?”

“I think you’re right and I hate you for it.” 

Lance snickered. “Sucks for you guys.”

“Hey.” Pidge pointed a finger blindly in his direction. “I will throw all the shit in this truck at you, don’t test me.”

“Oh, so I break something _one time_ on _accident_ and I get crucified, but _you_ can break whatever you want on purpose?”

“Allow me to put this in terms you’ll understand: yep, so suck it.”

Lance pouted at her before walking over to Hunk and flopping forward. The big guy made a surprised sound as Lance collapsed on his front, but caught him easily regardless. Their shirts were both damp with sweat and he could immediately feel the two fabrics sticking to each other. 

“ _Huuuunk_ , Pidge lied before, she hates me,” Lance whined into his friend’s shoulder. Hunk just sighed and pat his arm. 

“Nah, she just shows her love by picking on you and making you suffer.”

“Lucky me,” Lance deadpanned, only to be interrupted by the sound of Hunk’s stomach growling so fiercely Lance _felt_ it against his own. Hunk laughed sheepishly as Lance peeled himself away, raising a brow and giving him a look. 

“Hunk,” he started in a warning tone. “Did you eat anything this morning?” 

Hunk said nothing, but the way he rubbed the back of his neck was answer enough. Hunk was usually the one who reminded _them_ to eat when Pidge was absorbed in her machines or Lance was absorbed in his map. If the big guy hadn’t eaten before they started, chances were Pidge hadn’t either. 

“I didn’t want to take the time,” Pidge defended before he could ask. 

Lance sighed, shaking his head. He walked around to Blue’s passenger side and opened the door. “Lucky for you guys, I’m always prepared for this sort of thing.”

He heard Pidge sit up on the roof as he ducked into Blue’s cabin. The metal creaked under her slight weight, the sound amplified in the small space. Lance popped open the glovebox and dug around inside, snatching what he needed before standing back and slamming the door.

Pidge looked down at him questioningly when he thrust a protein bar up at her. The bright orange wrapper glowed in the midday sun, making it a bit hard to look at. 

“Oh man, are those the super gross protein bars the Garrison gave out after training?” Hunk asked, already looking queasy as Pidge leaned forward and took one. 

She scrutinized the label with squinted eyes. “Lance, don’t you save these for your scouting trips?”

“Yeah, but I’m not about to let you guys work like this all day without eating anything.”

“Touché.”

He tossed another bar to Hunk and there was a moment of rustling as they both fought to tear the wrappers open. When they did, Pidge’s nose scrunched and Hunk visibly shuddered. 

“The things you do to survive,” Hunk said, somber as if he were diagnosing someone with cordyceps.

Pidge hummed her agreement. “Cheers to that.” They raised their bars in the air towards each other, then hesitantly bit into them.

They chewed slowly, and Lance grinned as he watched their expressions fall. Pidge flinched while Hunk made a choked sound, his face twisting into a grimace. 

“ _Ugh_ , how are they even worse than I remember? Man, what is that texture? Is this thing full of dirt or something?”

“When you cram enough protein to keep a small country from starving into a four-inch space, it’s gonna taste like shit,” Pidge said, glaring at the offending food like it had personally murdered her whole family. “You could deep fry it, cover it in chocolate, and infuse it with unicorn jizz and it wouldn’t make a difference.”

Lance snorted as he ripped his own wrapper. “Maybe it’s already got unicorn jizz in it and that’s why it tastes so bad.”

“The Garrison _would_.”

“I feel like if unicorns were a thing, they would’ve found a way to stop the whole ‘cordyceps’ thing,” Hunk mussed as he took another begrudging bite. Lance trotted over and perched on the truck’s lowered gate next to him, happily munching as he leaned his weight back on his free hand. 

“It doesn’t affect animals; the unicorns would have no reason to try to stop it,” Pidge reasoned. She watched Lance with her lips curled in disdain. “How can you eat that so casually? Usually you’re the one throwing a fit whenever we have to eat something marginally gross.”

Lance paused mid-chew and looked down at the protein bar. They tasted like someone had condensed the entire vitamin aisle at the pharmacy into a confined space and then had tried to make it palatable by waving it over a chocolate-scented candle. Add to that the texture of biting into a lump of wet sand and they were easily one of the most disgusting things he’d ever eaten, which was seriously saying something at this point. 

But they had also kept him going in sticky situations more than once, so he couldn’t bring himself to hold onto his aversion for them. A food that was easily portable and gave him enough energy to outrun packs of infected? It could be filled with literal arsenic and he’d still eat them by the dozen. 

He shrugged and took another huge bite, already halfway finished. “Ahm uzed to iht.” Pidge wrinkled her nose at him, and he grinned at her with his mouth full. 

“Augh, Lance! Gross!” Hunk and Pidge’s disgusted shouts echoed each other perfectly. He swallowed and stuck his tongue out at her. 

“Do you want it or not? If you’re not gonna eat it, I’ll save it for next time I go into the city.”

Pidge went quiet, staring down at the grainy, taupe-colored rectangle with more disgust than she gave infected. Finally she groaned and nibbled off another bite. 

“Sometimes I hate survival,” she muttered darkly, crossing her legs and propping her head up in her free hand. 

“Preach it, sister.” Lance raised his bar in the air before chomping the rest of it in one go.

“Even if it doesn’t affect them, I like to think the unicorns would help us anyway,” Hunk said, gazing into the open hangar with a thoughtful furrow to his brow, and the wistful comment was enough to spark a heated debate. Lance sat back and enjoyed the show, immediately siding with Hunk when he was called upon as the tiebreaker. 

“Obviously unicorns exist and obviously they’re benevolent creatures, so it’s only a matter of time before they cure cordyceps and solve all our problems,” Lance declared to the background of Pidge’s groaning. He’d laid down over the course of the discussion, squeezing into the gaps between piles of parts. His hands rested on his stomach while his legs dangled out of the flatbed. “We’ve been trying nonstop for four years and we can’t fucking do it, so who knows? Maybe rainbow-sparkle-glitter magic is what it’ll take to come up with a cure.” Even Pidge couldn’t disagree with that. 

The trio grew quiet once they’d all finished eating, content in each other’s company while they recharged. Cicadas drove away the campus’ reigning silence as the sun reached its peak. The heat intensified in turn, enough that Lance could see the air rippling with it as he stared up into endless blue. The sky was dotted with a few wayward clouds, but they were thin, too sparse to provide any shade, and Lance felt himself drifting again, his thoughts stretched into wispy strands like the clouds. 

After a morning spent fighting off his encroaching thoughts he didn’t have the energy to resist anymore. His friends were safely close by, and he was lying in the back of Blue, arguably his favorite place in the world—it was a rare moment of peace in the crazy ruins of their lives. 

Closing his eyes, Lance let out a long exhale, indulging himself his fantasies. Enough time had passed that, his mind wandering as it was, Lance could finally look past Mystery Boy’s beautiful exterior and found himself wondering _who_ the boy was. 

Everyone who had survived the outbreak for this long had a story to tell. Where had he come from? Why was he in Plaht City? Had he traveled far? What had he been doing on campus? Was he alone? 

Where had he gone after he’d run off?

Twelve hours was more than enough time to get far away from the Garrison. He could be literally anywhere in the city by now, yet that same part of him that had whispered for Lance to not let him get away the first time wished to see the boy again. 

Now that he was letting himself think about the incident at all, that same feeling flooded his gut and pulled his brain back from the fringes. Something deep inside was pulling at him, trying to tell him something. He drummed his fingers on his stomach, suddenly restless.

Because along with the memory, along with the confusion and curiosity it still brought, came the undeniable heaviness of guilt. 

Lance wanted to keep the encounter to himself. It was a completely irrational urge, nonsensical yet sticking in his mind as solidly as the image of Mystery Boy’s electric eyes. But the rational part of him, the part that had seen and caused more bloodshed than he cared to recall, knew that whether the boy was still around or not, the smart thing to do was to tell his friends. 

It wasn’t what he _wanted_ to do, but it was the smart thing. 

Just in case he was still on campus somewhere. Just in case he was as dangerous as the storm in his eyes. Lance would never forgive himself if something happened to his friends.

They’d been resting for the better part of an hour by the time Lance came to his decision. He fidgeted where he still laid in Blue, squinting at Pidge’s legs hanging off the roof and listening to Hunk idly sort through a pile of parts. Even now that he’d decided, a tiny, bitter part of him was determined to be petty about it, and it kept him from speaking up until Hunk and Pidge both hopped out of Blue and stretched out with part-begrudging, part-excited sentiments about getting back to work.

Their voices started to fade as they headed back towards the hangar, and Lance knew that he had to say something _right now_ , otherwise he’d lose his nerve and give into the devil on his shoulder like he really wanted to. He swallowed and braced himself. Best to bring it up casually. 

“Oh, hey, before you guys go back to your frolicking, I almost forgot to tell you,” he started, waving a hand in an attempt at casual. He nibbled his bottom lip. “I, uh...I ran into some guy sneaking around campus yesterday.”

He couldn’t see them—which had been a purposeful choice, he didn’t want to know what kind of look they were both giving him—but he heard two sets of footsteps freeze. 

A long silence stretched, then Hunk piped up in clear yet not unkind confusion. 

“Uh, what?” 

Pidge, as usual, was much more blunt. 

“What the fuck, Lance? And you’re just telling us this _now?_ ”

He held back a sigh, telling himself that he’d expected to get some shit for not coming clean sooner and that it was the bed he’d made that he now had to lie in. 

Didn’t mean he had to like it, though. 

“Look, it wasn’t a big deal!” he groaned, dragging a hand down his face as he sat up to face his friends’ reaming with what little dignity he could salvage. 

“Wait, wait—I was with you all day yesterday, when did you—?” Hunk cut off, eyes widening then narrowing again. “You saw him when you first went into the storeroom didn’t you?”

Lance said nothing, but his petulant expression was telling enough.

“Oh, I knew it! I _knew_ it was dangerous to go in there!” Hunk cried, throwing his hands in the air. Lance crossed his arms, hunching his shoulders up to his ears. 

“Okay, okay, I get it! Can you stop holding that over my head already? Look what we got out of it!” He gestured wildly at the piles around him, then stuffed his hand back into the crook of his elbow. “I didn’t tell you ‘cause it didn’t matter. Now you know, _and_ we have all this stuff, so can you give it a rest?”

“And let you off the hook so easy? Hell no,” Pidge said, and Hunk nodded next to her. Lance glared at them until Pidge quirked a brow. “So?”

“So what?”

“So what _happened?_ Did you just see him across the room and he bolted? Did you talk to him?”

Lance grimaced. All at once his defensive posture cracked at the seams, his crossed arms curling tighter around himself and his chin dipping down. Now came the part they really wouldn’t like.

“Not...exactly...” He glanced at his friends, saw Pidge staring him down and Hunk’s brows furrowed with worry. “He kinda...ran off. He didn’t really say anything, and I didn’t see where he went.”

Pidge let out a long, put-upon sigh. “I was afraid you’d say that. We should check around campus. If he’s still here it’s better to find him before he surprises us.”

Lance’s heart lurched. An image of the guy’s knife held at Pidge’s throat instead of his own flashed in his mind’s eye. “Oh no, no way. That is not a good idea.”

“Well we wouldn’t have to if you'd bothered to tell us sooner!” 

Pidge could often be found yelling or complaining in Lance’s direction, but it wasn’t often that she _meant_ it. There was no playfulness in her tone, now. “We could’ve had this problem solved last night, but now we’ve wasted all this time! You could’ve at least found out what the hell he’s doing here instead of letting him fuck off to who knows where!”

“Hey, I tried, okay? He obviously wasn’t gonna say anything, and I wasn’t about to argue with him! I don’t know if you’ve ever played Twenty Questions at knife-point, so lemme tell you—super not fun!”

Lance felt the atmosphere shift as soon as the words left his mouth. His friends went rigid in unison, and he barely had half a second to wince at how that must have sounded before they both burst. 

“He _attacked_ you? _What the fuck_ , Lance, how could you not tell us?”

“Oh my gosh, are you okay? Did he hurt you?”

“No!” Lance knew his answer came far too quick, but it burst out of him before he could stop it. “No, I’m fine! Really guys, it’s okay! Nothing happened. He just...” 

Unconsciously he lifted a hand to trace the thin line across his neck. All of a sudden, with his friends staring at him in matching horror, it didn’t seem insignificant anymore. It was still just a barely-there paper cut, but he could _feel_ it beneath his fingertips as prominently as if a gouge had been torn out of his skin. 

He startled when a hand landed atop his own. He looked at Pidge across from him, mouth opening to defend himself on instinct, but as soon as he met her gaze the words dried up. 

Concern replaced the usual snark in her expression. Lips pressed and eyes shining, her hand was small but strong, soft if it weren’t for the callouses on her fingertips and at the base of each digit. 

“What happened?” she asked, gentle but firm, and in that moment she reminded him so much of Veronica that Lance deflated in an instant, letting out a shaking breath and turning his hand to lace his fingers with hers. 

They sat beside him on the edge of Blue’s flatbed as he told the whole story, from thinking he’d trapped himself in a room with a stage three infected to the boy’s retreat. They listened without interruption, letting him get it all out, and he sighed in relief when he was done, a weight lifting off his chest that he hadn’t realized was there. 

“So, yeah,” he finished with a one-shouldered shrug. “Like I said: I’m totally fine, nothing happened. I was kinda dazed after he flipped me, though, so I didn’t see where he went. I haven’t seen him, I’ve kept an eye out all day, but I don’t know for sure if he’s still here or not.”

Inexplicable feelings or not, he should’ve told his friends right after it happened. He could admit that he may or may not have let himself get caught up in a pair of beautiful eyes. It wasn’t the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last—he’d been a flirt and a romantic all his life and even the apocalypse wasn’t about to change that—but he did feel better now that he’d come clean.

Hunk’s big hand rested on his knee, drawing his gaze up from where it had fallen with an affectionate squeeze. “Hey man, it’s okay. I’m just glad you’re alright.”

Pidge nodded and nudged his opposite arm. “Yeah, you big dummy. Even though you’re an idiot, we care about _you_ most.”

Lance snorted, a wavering smile returning to his face. “Thanks, guys—hey, ow! Now _you’re_ the one hurting me, yeesh!” he cried, rubbing the back of his head where Pidge smacked him. 

“ _That_ is for not telling us sooner, though. Now come on, lets lock up the hangar and get searching. He probably didn’t hang around if we haven’t seen him since, but I’m not going to take that chance. If he’s still here, we’ll find him.” Her brows furrowed, her expression resolved. “Better be ready for a fight.”

Hunk nodded and, with a pat to Lance’s shoulder, stood up to go close the hangar door. Lance, though, watched his friends with mounting alarm, a bubble of indecision caught in his throat. He didn’t move, too overcome with a sudden surge of that feeling from the day before that drove him to do irrational things like chase after knife-wielding strangers. And defend them to his friends, apparently.

His lack of action was noticed by those friends soon enough. Pidge paused and gave him a loaded look.

“Are you sure you’re okay, Lance?” 

He nearly scoffed. No, no he wasn’t. He was confused and worried and bitter all at once. He knew Hunk and Pidge were right to be concerned, knew that they were afraid after learning he’d been attacked—for lack of a better word—on their turf.

They were on the warpath. He couldn’t blame them. He knew he should be too, but... 

“Listen,” he finally sighed. “I know it sounds totally crazy, but...” Lance bit his lip, debating before deciding to just go for it. “I don’t think he’s dangerous.”

Both of his friends blinked at him. Hunk with concern, like he was afraid Lance was sporting some kind of head injury, and Pidge as if he’d just started spontaneously sprouting cordyceps out his eyeballs. 

“We are still talking about the guy who attacked you, right? He _could’ve killed you_ ,” Pidge said, slowly, as if explaining something to a child and okay, now she was seriously reminding him of Veronica. “Or did he hit you on the head too so you don’t remember?”

“I gotta say, I have a hard time believing that.” Hunk’s eyes were soft as he looked at Lance, and Lance knew that his friend’s attention lingered on the line across his neck. 

Lance swallowed, struggling with his own emotions. He wasn’t even sure why he believed as much, but he did; it was such a strong gut feeling, the same kind he got about impending danger, but this time...it was almost warm. Hopeful? _Longing?_

Really it was a bunch of absurd and nonsensical things that Lance couldn’t even being to unravel and wasn’t sure he wanted to. He’d always been a romantic but even he had never really bought into Love-At-First-Sight type shit, especially with the way the world was now. 

Lance loved and trusted his friends like a second family, but even so he figured it was probably best not to mention how drawn he felt to the stranger, nor how close he’d come to chasing after him. Judging from the disbelief on their faces, he already sounded like enough of a lunatic. 

Not for the first time, Lance wondered if maybe all the post-apocalyptic, world-in-chaos shit was finally starting to get to him.

Regardless, the feeling was strong enough that he physically couldn’t ignore it. Confounding as it was, he could tell enough to know that it was definitely not a warning. 

“I’m serious!” he protested. They both just kept staring at him. “Okay, yeah, he technically attacked me, but he probably thought I was an infected just like I thought when I heard noises! It’s strike first or get bitten with those things. You guys know how it is. If he wanted to kill me, he totally could have. By the time I even knew what was happening he had me pinned down. There was literally nothing stopping him. So if he was dangerous, why wouldn’t he have just killed me right then? Or even threatened me, or _something_ instead of running off?”

Hunk gave him one of his gentle looks that automatically made him frown. Lance knew that look. It signaled that he wasn’t going to like what Hunk said next. 

“He could’ve let you go to follow you. Maybe he thought you had a stockpile, or that he could follow you to a safe place or other supplies he could need.”

Lance’s heart dropped like a stone. He felt his hackles rise, unable to help flicking wary eyes across the open campus around them. But then Pidge wrinkled her nose, looking sour as if she didn’t like what she was about to say but was compelled to say it anyway.

“It’s likely something would’ve happened last night if that were true. If this guy wanted to steal our stuff or take over our base, it would make the most sense to strike while we were all asleep.” She sent Lance a deadpan look. “Especially since _someone_ didn’t warn us that there was a potential threat roaming around.”

“Yeah, Lance, usually you’re so tight with security and keeping the perimeter clear and stuff,” Hunk said. “You feeling okay, buddy?”

Just as Lance started to relax again, he had to fight down a blush. “Pshhh, yeah, of course, never better. Just—just forget I said anything. I’m sure he’s long gone by now, anyway, so...it’s whatever.”

Lance dropped his gaze and turned away to try and hide the redness rising in his cheeks. The quiet dragged on, and he felt his friends’ eyes on his back, but with a valiant effort he managed to keep from fidgeting. 

“Ohhh,” Hunk finally said, dawning realization in his voice as if he’d just had an epiphany, in the same instant that Pidge started groaning.

“ _Lance_.” Her tone was a dozen different shades of Done With His Shit and enough for the single word to make his cheeks flame like he was being scolded by his Mamá. 

“W-what?” His voice was too high, too defensive. He swallowed and tried to force himself to seem nonchalant, but his thoughts were too busy spiraling into an endless stream of ‘ _fuck fuck fuck fuck_ —’

“Don’t ‘what’ me, you _know_ what.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She groaned again, dragging a hand down her face. “Lance, you know we’re not that stupid, so quit acting like it.”

Damn it, she’d caught him in her logic. Maybe if he could stop fucking blushing for five seconds he could try to play this off, but no matter how hard he willed the redness in his cheeks to fade, judging from the continued heat singeing his face, it was undeterred. 

“Look, can’t we just get back to it?” He leapt out of the flatbed and grabbed Hunk’s wrist, ignoring his friend’s shaking head as he tried to pull him to his feet. “C’mon, daylight’s a-wasting, you said yourself there’s a shit ton more bays to get through, so—lets— _get—going...!_ ”

He gave a few more futile heaves before he was forced to catch his breath, dropping Hunk’s arm to brace his hands on his knees. He offered the big guy a half-hearted glare through the sweat-soaked tips of hair in his eyes. 

Hunk just smiled sheepishly. “Sorry, Lance, but I’m pretty sure this is something we should talk about.”

“There’s nothing to talk about! I’m fine, everything’s fine, there’s nothing of note going on here at all! Lets just move on!”

Pidge speared him with a merciless look. “Lance, there’s only one reason that idiotic enigma of a brain of yours would readily defend someone who _threatened you with a knife_ , and we all know it. I get the whole ‘deprived of human contact’ thing, I do, but _really?_ Do you really have to have the hots for some guy who knocked you on your ass in two seconds flat? Does your need to get laid actually outweigh your survival instinct? ‘Cause I hate to break it to you, but with the way you flirt, he’s liable to stab you before you so much as score a firm handshake.” 

_Why_ oh why did Pidge have to see through him so easily? His mouth dropped open in outrage, but for once he couldn’t form words. Protests tangled on his tongue so that only a stream of indignant sounds escaped.

“It’s pretty obvious, now that I think about it.” Hunk wasn’t visibly angry, but there was a quiet sort of exasperated amusement in his smile and somehow that was almost worse. “If he really did take you out that quickly, he probably impressed the hell out of you once you got over being mad about it. And obviously he was cute or you wouldn’t be so star-struck.”

Lance gaped at the two of them, mouth opening and closing enough times that Pidge snorted. Snapping his jaw shut, he grit his teeth, silently wishing the Earth would just swallow him up so he wouldn’t have to deal with looking like even more of an idiot than usual. He could deal when it was purposeful for the sake of making his friends smile, but being the butt of this particular joke? He’d take a hard pass. 

“Did not!” Lance’s rebuttal of Hunk’s statement came about five seconds too late. He crossed his arms and glared. “I totally could’ve taken him if he hadn’t gotten the jump on me! I still don’t see how he managed to be that sneaky. I’m like, at least eighty percent convinced he’s a demon. Or sold his soul for stealth ability. No one is naturally that good, so it’s gotta be something!”

Lance had no idea why he was still talking. He was being way too obvious and he really needed to shut up, but he physically couldn’t stop himself. 

And okay, yeah, what his friends said was a little true. So what if he’d spent most of his time since daydreaming about the guy’s eyes? It didn’t mean anything. And even if it did, did his friends need to know that? 

No. No they didn’t. 

Chances were that Lance would never see Mystery Boy again anyway. That particular thought snagged painfully in his chest, and he swallowed against the prickly feeling in his ribcage. 

“He wasn’t even attractive! You guys should’ve seen it, he had this haircut that was straight out of the ‘70s. If he did sell his soul that was probably the trade-off. ‘You can be quiet as a mouse but for the rest of your life you’ll be cursed with awful hair.’ Like, it was actually sinful.”

‘ _Never mind that it looked sinfully soft, too_ ,’ his brain supplied helpfully. 

“And don’t even get me started on his eyes! They had bags for days, first of all, and they were this totally weird gray color. How does that even work? We’re not in some sci-fi drama, it shouldn’t even be possible for your eyes to be gray. What the fuck.”

‘ _It shouldn’t be possible for one person’s eyes to hold the universe, either, but his had more constellations than the entire night sky_.’

Okay, wow, holy shit, he really wasn’t helping his case at all, was he? Was he blushing again? Yeah, he was totally blushing again. Lance jolted out of his traitorous thoughts and tried to cover up how he’d just dazed out by sticking his nose up in the air. 

“A-anyway, I absolutely _do not_ ‘have the hots for him.’ And you guys call _me_ ridiculous, yeesh.”

After his tirade it was quiet for a few seconds. Then Pidge sighed, long and loud and not without the tiniest of smirks pulling one corner of her lips. 

“He kicked your ass but he’s _hot_ so you _loved_ it. I can’t believe this. No, wait, I actually can. Leave it to Loverboy Lance to nearly get his head chopped off because of a pair of pretty eyes.”

Defeated, Lance sat on the ground and drew his knees up, propping his crossed arms atop them and dropping his forehead to hide his face in the dark crevice of shame he’d created. “You guys are the worst.”

“And you’re an idiot,” Pidge countered. “Didn’t think you were this big of one, though. You know better than either of us how shitty people are now, but you’re seriously going to defend him? Did you get bitten and not tell us? Are you going crazy?”

The jury had been out on that last one ever since Mystery Boy’s beautiful face had been burned into his mind. Probably longer than that, if he was being honest with himself. 

“Not everyone is bad, now,” Hunk pointed out, his voice closer than it had been before. A large hand dropped onto Lance’s shoulder, and he leaned into it, glad at least one of his friends wasn’t outright crucifying him. “If they were then we’d be bad, too. People don’t just catch post-apocalyptic-psycho-syndrome like it’s cordyceps.” 

“Hunk, you can’t compare us to someone running around shanking people.” 

Lance’s head whipped up. “I told you, he didn’t hurt me!”

“Ah-ah!” Pidge held up a silencing finger. “Damage to the retinas and-or brain counts, now hush.”

Lance narrowed his eyes. “I hate you.”

This time Pidge’s smirk was full-blown. “But you love being taken down, you kinky little shit.”

Hunk spluttered, but the sound didn’t cover up the choked noise that Lance made as he threw up his arms in surrender. “Why do I tell you anything ever? Why are you my friend? Hunk, why do you let me do this to myself?”

Hunk raised his hands. “Hey, I told you to be careful when you went back there! Didn’t I tell you to be careful? And you said ‘when am I not’ and probably thought you were being so clever? Well now you weren’t careful and have to face the consequences!”

“Oh, I am,” Lance muttered.

“Alright, get your head out of your thirsty ass and listen up.” Pidge stood in front of him and crossed her arms. Despite the fact that his head came midway up her torso while he was sitting down, a frustrated Pidge was an intimidating figure even when she wasn’t backlit by the sun and framed by Blue’s imposing silhouette. “I’m not going to try and stop you from being attracted to people. I may be able to pull off the impossible sometimes, but that’d take a miracle.” 

Lance opened his mouth to argue, but Pidge talked right over him. “But you have to see that it’s stupid, right? Just because you walked away with only a few bruises doesn’t mean the same would be true if it happened again. I know you’re not blind enough to not see that.”

Lance dropped his eyes. He stared petulantly at his knees as Hunk patted his shoulder. 

“I know,” he sighed. A peculiar storm of emotions raged in his stomach, making him small with embarrassment yet inflated with sureness. “I know how it sounds, but I’ve thought about it a lot since yesterday, and I think you’re right: if he was going to come after us, something would’ve happened last night.” 

He pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, hating that he still saw the boy’s lightning glare in the dark spots behind his eyelids. “And _trust_ me, I _know_ how much stupider _this_ is gonna sound, but I didn’t get danger-vibes from him. He let me go as soon as he saw I wasn’t an infected or something. The self-defense was probably just instinct. ‘Shitty people,’ right? Maybe he’s running from someone, or ran into hunters before he got here. I don’t know.”

He let out a breath, too weak to be the indignant huff he was aiming for. “We don’t even know if he’s still _here_. Chances are he’s long gone and it won’t matter either way.” 

Another stretch of quiet. Then he felt a flick against his forehead, and he looked up, scrunching his nose. 

Pidge was shaking her head, but it was decidedly less frustrated than it had been before. “Guess we’d better check campus and find out, then.”

Lance’s grin was slow to form, but eventually it grew to its full size. Pidge shoved him as he stood up, but Hunk kept him steady with a hand at his back.

“Just don’t do anything stupid if we _do_ find him, okay?” Hunk pleaded. 

“Come on, you know I can’t promise that,” Lance teased, and Hunk ruffled his hair. 

“You better, dude! You really want to make me worry about you more than I already do?” 

“You should know by now that I can’t be held responsible for my own actions when it comes to pretty people! Especially when they’ve got that sexy, ‘dangerous bad boy’ vibe going on.”

Lance realized what he’d said too late. His eyes widened and he stammered to try and backtrack, but his attempts were ignored by his cackling friends. 

“Man, you’re hopeless,” Pidge snickered. 

If Lance blushed any more in one sitting he was liable to explode. “That’s it, I can’t take this abuse anymore. You can go search the buildings, I’m going to check the perimeter.” 

Pidge’s grin didn’t falter. “Yeah, yeah, go up and stew in your Pouty Perch.”

Lance caught himself just as his bottom lip was about to jut out in a pout. “It’s a sniper lookout and you know it.”

“Mmhmm,” Pidge hummed. “Just hang a sock on the door if you’re gonna be fantasizing about Mr. Knocked-You-On-Your-Ass, okay? No one wants to see that.”

“I don’t—I wasn’t—Ugh, fine! See if I keep an eye on you guys while I’m up there! If you get eaten because you just had to get sassy with your lookout, that’s on you!”

With a final huff Lance stormed off, ignoring the chipper goodbyes Hunk and Pidge gave. He tried to be mad, he really did, but he’d expected—and deserved, admittedly—some shit about yesterday, and really his anger was just a front to cover up his embarrassment. Every now and again Lance resented that he so easily wore his heart on his sleeve. It didn’t help how well they both knew him, either. He was just glad they weren’t too mad and were letting him run off to blush in peace. 

He only kept up his dramatic stomping for a few minutes before his legs tired, and he trudged his way across the open expanse of campus between the hangars and other buildings. With nothing to offer any semblance of shade, he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the harsh sun, feeling sweat dampen the ends of his hair and slide down the back of his neck. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable up in the lookout perch, but right now he’d take it over looking like any more of an idiot in front of his friends. 

It felt like ages before he finally made it back to Arus Hall. He sucked in grateful breaths of slightly-less-sweltering air as he climbed up towards the roof, only stopping off in the control room to grab his sniper rifle. The worn leather strap settled across his torso with the ease of a good friend’s embrace. 

To be fair, the lookout perches did double as Lance’s chill space. He’d set up multiple on the roofs of different buildings across campus after he’d settled in, but the one on the roof of their main hideout was the one he most frequently used. He was the best shot out of all of them by far, so Pidge and Hunk had happily forked over lookout duties to him in favor of working indoors out of the sun and scorch. 

Pushing open the heavy, metal double-doors and stepping out onto the roof was like walking into his bedroom back home, even as the joints squealed and scraped. Over the course of the two years he’d been at the Garrison, it had become the place he went when he wanted to be alone. Usually after he had dreams about his family, so vivid it was like he was with them again. 

Pidge and Hunk didn’t really bother him up here. That said, he definitely did not use it to _pout_. 

“I’m twenty-two years old and an awesome ninja sharpshooter, and awesome ninja sharpshooters don’t _pout_ ,” he muttered as he crossed the sun-coated roof.

The heat was even worse up here. The air around him shimmered with it, the sunlight so bright that the black sheet of asphalt beneath his feet gleamed like a meadow of diamonds. If it weren’t for the thickness of the soles of his boots, he suspected he’d be able to feel the heat radiating from the floor through his shoes. After ten steps his throat was parched and his lips had dried out, and he wished he’d thought to bring a bottle of water with him, but whatever. He’d stick it out for a little while. 

Between keeping watch from his perch and making rounds in Blue, Lance did his damnedest to keep the perimeter secure. The distance between campus and the city helped, but infected still too often found their way to the Garrison. The perches let him catch them from a distance while they were midway between the two and strike first, but more often than not infected wandered in from the city and who knew where else while they were asleep, leaving him and his friends to learn about their presence the hard way. 

The lookout perch itself was little more than a hastily constructed platform that sat atop the raised lip of the roof, with even more hastily constructed rails that gave him a place to rest his rifle. Metal poles in each corner held a tarp up over the platform, and he gratefully ducked inside the swath of shade. It was only a few degree’s cooler underneath, but even that felt heavenly. He’d take every degree he could get. 

Shoving the chair he’d snagged from one of the offices against the railing that faced the building’s edge, Lance plopped down with a sigh and pulled the sniper rifle from his back. He checked to make sure its clip was loaded and that he had some spare bullets in the latch-box by his feet before settling in. 

Lookout duty from up here wasn’t much different than on foot or in Blue; it could still be pretty boring, but at least he couldn’t complain about the view. He could see almost the entire campus from up here, from the dorms and class buildings in the east, to the administrative buildings and teacher residences in the west, all the way to the hangars in the south and beyond to the strips of runway below the flight range. Beyond campus, Plaht City pierced the air in the distant north like the teeth of a mangled zipper, the jagged edges of blown-apart buildings clawing the dripping gold of the sun with talons of metal and concrete. 

“What do they know?” Lance groused at the skyline, crossing his arms and bouncing his leg, rattling his rifle that rested against it. “Am I not allowed to think attractive people are attractive just ‘cause of the stupid apocalypse? ‘Cause that’s some serious bull. Like I’m _not_ gonna think about the hottest guy I’ve seen in four damn years. What’s the alternative, the mushroom-heads?”

Lance shuttered all the way down to his toes. Okay, he _really_ didn’t want to think in that direction.

He sat up straight and snatched his rifle, forcibly derailing that thought spiral before it could begin. He raised it and leaned into the scope, nose wrinkling at the blotches of filth that distorted the view as he searched campus for Blue. It was only thanks to her color shining near neon in the sunlight that he spotted her parked outside Balmera Hall, the largest of the dorm buildings. Neither Pidge nor Hunk were visible in the truck, so he assumed they had already begun their sweep. 

Not that he could see much of anything with his scope so dirty. He drew the gun away and frowned down at it, picking at a smudge on the lens with his fingernail. It had only been a few days since he’d used it, but with all the dust and debris churned up into the air by the decaying city, that was all the time it took for it to get caked up with grime. 

Bending down, he flipped open the latch-box and rummaged around, sorting through spare bullets and the little toys and knick-knacks he kept in the perch to keep himself from going mad during long hours of sitting in the same place. His fingers found a velvety cloth, and he pulled it out and kicked the box closed. 

“Alright, beautiful, let’s get you cleaned up.” 

He kept an eye out as he went to work cleaning the sniper’s scope. After every few swipes he lifted the rifle and snuck a glance at Blue to test his progress, his view clearer each time. By the time he finished with the lens that sat near his eye, he could see well enough to catch glimpses of his friends’ silhouettes through the windows of the building. He spent a few minutes watching just so he could stick out his tongue every time he spotted them.

The outward-facing lens was even dirtier, but after some rigorous scrubbing he raised the rifle again and looked through a crystal clear scope. He whistled appreciatively and swiveled his view across the distant buildings, pausing to study the details on Taujeer Hall, the administrative building directly across campus from Arus. Even the thinnest cracks spiderwebbing each window were visible with the high-powered scope. 

“That’s better, huh girl?” He patted the rifle’s stock reverently. “Now lets see if we can find any mad mystery men out and about this fine day—”

A blinding flare of light shone directly into his eyes and Lance cut off with a yelp. He jerked away, blinking against the starbursts burned into his vision. 

“What the hell?” he groaned, pressing his palms into his eyes. It took a long moment for the dancing colors to fade enough for him to peer back through, warily retracing a path down the facade of Taujeer Hall until—

No way. No _fucking_ way.

He leapt out of his chair and scrambled closer to the edge of the perch, leaning the entire top half of his torso over the railing. 

“Holy fuck,” Lance whispered, incredulous. 

It was him. The knife-wielding, bandana-wearing boy from the day before was down there, blade flashing in the sun as he ran from a small horde of infected. 

His shock dampened his reflexes into a snail’s pace. He stared for far too long before he came back to himself with a jolt, nearly fumbling his gun as he took aim at one of the runners leading the pack. But before he could squeeze the trigger, the boy turned sharply around the corner of another building and vanished around the far side, taking his pursuers with him out of Lance’s sights. 

“Fuck!” He burst into frantic motion as a colorful string of curses tumbled from his lips. Tripping over his own feet, he threw his rifle over his shoulder and raced to the stairs, wind whipping in his ears as he took them two at a time. 

He ran so fast that the halls blurred. He careened into the wall when he reached the bottom of the stairwell and froze in a moment of indecision, trying to think of which exit would be faster. If he went out the garage he’d have to run all the way around the building—the back door was farther away, but it faced the correct direction.

He spun on his heel and took off again, footfalls bouncing off the concrete of the lower levels and echoing back to him in multiples. He skidded around a corner and raced to the back door, forgetting about the trap that protected it until he was on top of it. He just managed to leap over the tripwire at the last second, stumbling into the door with his already aching shoulder and typing his passcode into the lock with shaking fingers. 

“Come on, come on—yes!” 

The sun blinded him, but he didn’t give his eyes time to adjust. Spots twirled in his vision as he ran, driven purely by the thought of ‘ _faster, run faster!_ ’ 

He _had_ to get there in time. In the brief glimpse he’d gotten of the boy’s pursuers, he’d spotted both runners and clickers in the pack; if the infected caught up to him, his odds weren’t good. Lance’s footsteps pounded on cement and in the grass, a jolt shooting up his legs every time he stepped on or tripped over bits of debris. 

When he reached Taujeer Hall he ran along the side until he could round the corner into the valley between the two rows of administrative buildings. He caught sight of the boy ahead of him, running between the next pair of buildings, his silhouette barely distinguishable from the pack chasing him. Fucking hell, where had all those infected _come_ from?

With practiced ease Lance dropped to one knee, propping his elbow atop his raised kneecap to keep the gun steady as he peered through the scope. The Garrison’s apparent hatred for any kind of decor or homey touches was at least good for one thing: no trees or lamp posts or fountains or other superfluous shit blocked his sightline. Sniping was always easier from elevation, but this would do well enough in a pinch. 

Just as he was lining up his first shot someone started shouting, and Lance’s sights whipped to the side to see another person emerge from around the side of Oriande Hall. Lance registered broad shoulders, a strip of white in short, black hair, and a pistol aimed at the horde before he shouted again and Mystery Boy dove as he fired. 

A symphony of shots accompanied the dull thud of two runners that had been closing on Mystery Boy’s heels. The boy scrambled up and rushed over to the other man, both of them speaking frantically. Lance was too far away to hear what was said, but then Mystery Boy stepped in front of the other with his knife raised, facing down the quartet of runners and pair of clickers advancing full-speed.

Lance’s heart leapt into his throat. He _felt_ it as his thoughts gave way to instinct, his motions precise and automatic. 

He swung his sights to the swarm of howling monsters closing in. Panic welled in the hollow of his chest, knowing that people could get hurt if he fucked this up, but it was forced aside easily enough with a few measured breaths. He focused in on the clicker closest to the front of the pack, willing his hands to be steady against its stilted, erratic movements, and pulled the trigger. 

The sound of the high-powered shot ricocheted into the far reaches of campus, and the clicker went down with a hole clean through its mushroom-coated head. 

Even without taking his eyes off his targets Lance was dimly aware of the humans in his periphery startling and looking around in alarm. The runners were still zeroed in on the flesh and blood they could see, but he ignored them for the moment and moved on to the remaining clicker. It had turned towards the sound of his shot, and Lance stared into the dripping muddle of fungus and rot that composed its face as it screeched and changed course, starting towards him with lurching steps and head and arms thrashing. He held steady, waiting for a sure shot. 

Just a single second’s pause, that was all he needed. After a few paces it stopped, disjointed clicking sounds gurgling from its throat as it tried to locate him.

Lance fired and moved on. 

After the first runner fell the others finally took notice, but by then it was far too late. The _bang!_ from his rifle was a near continuous sound that harmonized with his hammering heart, a new shot firing off before the echoes of the previous had faded. The runners fell quickly, and six clean shots later it was over. The bodies lay in twisted heaps, and thick, blackish blood oozed from a single bullet hole in each of their heads. 

Only then did Lance’s attention return to the two strangers. By now they’d both spotted him, and he laughed when he met two sets of stunned eyes staring into his scope. He was more than a little surprised that the stab-happy stranger was apparently traveling with someone, but all he could focus on through the adrenaline rush of the fight was a surge of relief that the boy was okay. 

Well, that and a _touch_ of envy for the companion he looked at with such concern, but he shoved it aside as soon as it surfaced. 

“Just be glad to see him again,” Lance told himself, shaking his head as he lowered his gun. “Well, hopefully you will be. Guess we’ll see if this goes better than last time.”

Pulling himself to his feet, he grinned and waved at the two silhouettes, slinging his rifle across his torso as he started walking the distance between them. His heart rabbited in time with his stride, and the traitorous organ actually skipped a fucking beat when he got close enough to glimpse Mystery Boy’s familiar face. 

And damn, his memory really hadn’t done him justice. Honestly Lance had started to suspect that he’d hallucinated the entire meeting—the boy was too beautiful to be real, and at this point, he really wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d started seeing things. Disappointed, but not surprised. 

But lo and behold. 

He was exactly as Lance remembered him: still dressed in the same clothes, still with the same bandana tied over his nose and mouth, still unfairly gorgeous.

Oh yeah, and still glaring at Lance like he was solely responsible for the fucking outbreak. But the conscious effort he had to put into calming his heartbeat had nothing to do with _that_. 

Lance stopped a few feet away from the pair, sure to keep his hands in plain sight and off of his weapon. He met those gray-violet eyes and got shivers down to his toes. 

After imagining them for almost the past twenty-four hours straight he thought he’d be immune to the deadly glimmer he knew awaited in the boy’s irises, but he’d been horribly wrong. If possible his eyes were even more vicious this time around. He felt the glare piercing through him as if it were a physical blade—

And then there _was_ a blade. In an instant Mystery Boy’s knife was in his hand again and he was stalking towards him, and Lance snapped out of his dreamy daze real fucking quick. 

“Whoa, whoa, hey now!” Lance stumbled over himself in his haste to scurry backward. “Do we really need to do this again? I just saved you!” 

“You think that’s enough to make me trust you?” 

And okay, wow, Lance’s memory really hadn’t done that _voice_ justice either. It was rougher than before, his words coming between labored breaths, but the exertion from running did nothing to make them any less threatening. 

“C’mon, man, do I look like I’m threatening you? There’s really no need for the ‘stab first, ask questions later’ mentality, here!” The boy kept advancing and Lance took a step back for every one he took forward. The tip of the knife flashed sharp and dangerous in the sun, and Lance gulped.

Just as the boy looked like he was about to pounce, the other person stepped up and put a hand on his murder-happy companion’s shoulder. Dark eyes whipped around with warning, but Lance saw how the boy’s shoulders relaxed a fraction. The other guy stepped forward and effectively crowded Mystery Boy out of stabbing range, inserting himself into the middle of the situation.

Admittedly Lance had maybe kinda sorta forgotten the other guy was even there, but as soon as he tore his gaze from Mystery Boy and his knife long enough to take a good look, he was appalled at himself for ever doing so. He didn’t know where these two had come from, but wherever it was was apparently where all the world’s attractive men had disappeared to. He’d have to find out and tell Hunk so he could go and be with his kin.

The guy was taller and broader than his knife-wielding companion, and what with his black-and-white hair and the scar across the bridge of his nose that somehow only made him more handsome, he was also undoubtedly the most unique person Lance had ever seen. Lance had to consciously prevent himself from gaping when his eyes trailed down and saw that his flesh-and-blood right arm had been replaced with a metal prosthetic that gleamed even though a layer of dust and grime.

If the guy noticed Lance openly staring he was polite enough not to comment on it. Instead he offered an apologetic smile. “Sorry about him,” he said, nodding at the shorter boy. “My brother’s not the best with new people. Thanks for the help.” 

Lance’s thoughts were too busy processing the sheer amount of beauty standing across from him to keep up with conversation. He mentally smacked himself. “O-oh, ha, yeah, it’s fine. I kinda expected it, to be honest. But yeah, it’s no problem! Happy to help out. I’m Lance, by the way.”

“Shiro,” the tall guy introduced, and something Lance couldn’t quite place passed through Mystery Boy’s eyes. Lance held them expectantly, trying not to look too eager to learn the name that matched with the face of his fantasies. 

If possible the boy seemed to close off even more, his eyes flashing over his bandana. Lance waited, but he didn’t answer, resulting in a drawn out stare-down until finally his gaze flicked to Shiro. It wasn’t until Shiro nodded that he spoke. 

“Keith,” he grumbled, clearly displeased, and yet it was still the most beautiful name Lance had ever heard. He smiled brightly and clapped his hands together.

“Well, Keith and Shiro, I’m glad I was around to lend a hand.” The two stared at him as if they expected something more, but then Shiro shifted his weight and broke the moment with a wince. 

Keith’s attention zeroed in on him. “Shiro? Are you okay?” 

“I’m fine.” Shiro shifted again to favor his right side. Keith circled around him and made a distressed sound, eyes locking on his left leg. 

Lance looked, too, and froze. 

A patch of red seeped through a bloodied rip in Shiro’s jeans. Lance was pretty sure he’d killed the infected before they got close enough to strike, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened before he’d intervened at all. 

“Did one of the infected do that?” he asked, his voice thick.

Shiro looked down at the wound as Keith knelt beside him, brows furrowing. “No,” he answered quickly—but not _too_ quickly. There was a distinct difference, one that didn’t go unnoticed. “I cut it exploring one of the buildings. That’s why I was coming to find you, Keith.” 

There was something about Shiro’s calm disposition as Keith inspected the wound that was oddly reassuring, but Lance knew it was as much a plausible cause as it was a plausible excuse. He wasn’t about to take any chances no matter how sincere the guy seemed. 

“You mind if I...?” Lance waved a hand towards the wound and trailed off. Shiro shrugged.

“Go ahead.”

Keith looked up sharply. He stood and whispered fiercely in Shiro’s ear, as if Lance wasn’t standing close enough to hear anyway. “Shiro, we shouldn’t trust him. He could be with GALRA.”

To his credit Lance really did try to hold himself back, but it was a futile endeavor to stop himself from bursting out laughing. Considering the way the already suspicious boy jumped and clutched his knife tighter it probably wasn’t the smartest reaction on Lance’s part, but he couldn’t help it. The notion that he could be any kind of associated with GALRA? Of all people? He had to wipe a tear from his eye. 

“Oh, _as if_ ,” Lance wheezed when he’d caught his breath. Keith just stared at him, posture reverted into a tense coil ready to snap, so he pulled himself together and put on a serious face. “Seriously, I’m _not_ with GALRA. Those bastards gave up on me a long time ago, they probably think I’m dead by now.” The other two shared a look that Lance pretended not to notice. “I’m holed up in one of the Garrison’s buildings with a group of friends, have been for a long-ass time. There haven’t been any GALRA around here for months.” 

Keith eyed him warily. He tried valiantly not to fidget as those gray-violet eyes scanned him up and down, sizing him up. 

“You could be lying,” Keith accused. Lance deadpanned at him.

“Dude, if I was GALRA, I’d just be yammering at you to get somewhere safe, right? And even if you happen to be on GALRA’s shit list for some reason—which is whatever as far as I care, honestly—I was literally just looking at you from the scope of my _sniper rifle_. If I wanted to hurt you I could’ve shot you both dead from two-hundred feet away.”

“He has a point.” Shiro smirked a bit and nudged the other with an elbow, but Keith still didn’t seem convinced. The brothers shared another meaningful look, and Lance watched with mild amusement as they communicated with eyebrow movements and flashing eyes alone. 

The unspoken battle didn’t seem to be progressing anywhere fast, though, so to speed it along Lance raised his hands in placating surrender. 

“I’m not gonna hurt you,” he assured, his words and posture purposely mirroring his and Keith’s first meeting. A twitch at Keith’s brow said that he noticed. “I just want to check. It’s safer for all of us that way.”

Truth be told, no matter how weak Lance’s heart already was to Shiro’s kindness or both of their ridiculous good looks, if he _was_ infected, Lance would walk away and wash his hands of both of them without a second thought. 

Even if Shiro had been infected, Lance wouldn’t murder him in cold blood; whether he’d prefer to die or turn, it was his choice to make. He understood why people lied about being bitten. He understood the fear that made them cling to every second they had left. 

So long as they were _far_ away from him when they _did_ turn, he couldn’t fault anyone for that. 

“Look, I’ll even lay my weapon down if that helps,” he continued, patting the strap across his chest. “Not like this is the kind of thing I could sneak attack with at close range, but hey, whatever makes you feel better.”

“You could have something else on you,” Keith answered instantly, and Lance snorted.

“Do you always assume the worst in people, or am I just that lucky?” He held out his arms and spun slowly in place. “See? Nothing else here—I mean, unless you’re counting B-O. I’ve been working outside all day so I probably don’t smell that great right now, but somehow I don’t think that would stop you.” 

When he faced forward again Lance planted his hands on his hips, surprising even himself by how easily he fell back into his flirty-ness after all this time. The smirk that curled his lips was as comfortable as sitting in Blue’s driver seat. It felt like coming home, making his eyes glimmer with the feeling.

“If you don’t believe me, you’re welcome to frisk me and see for yourself.”

He couldn’t stop himself from winking as he said it. It could’ve been a trick of the light, but Lance swore he caught the tips of Keith’s ears going red. 

“I don’t think that’ll be necessary,” Shiro chuckled.

Keith glared and crossed his arms. “Fine. But I’m watching you.” 

“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”

Permission acquired, Lance knelt so he was eye-level with the wound under the hawk-like supervision of Mr. Stabs-A-Lot. The gash was long, spanning from midway up the side of Shiro’s thigh down to the back of his knee. Thick rivulets of blood oozed out and soaked around the rip in his jeans. Lance carefully drew the fabric aside so he could lean in and sniff the wound.

Keith made a strange noise, and Lance elaborated before he could ask. “Even if it’s not a bite, any wound caused by an infected will smell like them.” Nothing but the sharp acid of blood filled his nose, so that was a good sign. There weren’t any teeth indents along the cut, either, and it looked clean of any spores that would’ve transferred had an infected clawed the flesh open. 

“Well, the good news is that it looks like you’re in the clear.” Lance grinned up at Shiro. “Bad news is that it’s probably gonna scar. Got anything to wrap it with?”

“Move.” 

Lance looked over just as Keith yanked off his bandana. All at once he was met with the unobstructed beauty that was Keith’s face, and his heart exploded into unsteady somersaults.

The first thing Lance noticed was his skin. Thanks to their previous close-quarters encounter, Lance had known he was pale, but it wasn’t until he could see the entirety of his face that he realized just how pale. The bandana had protected the lower half of his face from the sandpaper of dirt in the air. A visible line divided the upper half, with smudges across his forehead and below his eyes, and the lower half, preserved a pristine porcelain. It was probably a good thing that Keith was standing over him; if he were any closer, Lance couldn’t guarantee he could resist the urge to feel for himself if his skin was as smooth as it looked. 

The second thing he noticed, with a fair amount of flustered hysteria, was that his fantasy images hadn’t actually been that far off. Keith’s long hair tickled the curve of his shoulders and framed his features like a million dollar painting. The curve of his jaw and slope of his cheekbones were unquestionably handsome, and Lance couldn’t help but wonder if he’d been a model before the outbreak. His lips were slightly chapped, but that didn’t stop Lance from wanting to feel them, too, even when they were pulled into a scowl that intensified the longer he sat there gaping at him. 

He realized himself with a jolt and jumped to his feet. His voice cracked on a hasty apology, but thankfully Keith and Shiro were both distracted by Keith kneeling down and tending to the wound with the makeshift bandage. 

Lance took advantage of the moment’s reprieve to restart his brain and get a fucking grip. ‘ _Holy fuck, okay, cool it, Lance. Don’t be weird. Or melt. Or explode. Just breathe_.’ 

He physically shook himself and conjured back his smile. “Uh—sorry to get all up in there. I just had to be sure.”

“It’s fine, I understand,” Shiro assured. He hissed as Keith tied off the bandana bandage—the _bandanage?_ —and stood with a frown on his face.

“It’ll be okay for now, but we should find something to clean it with,” Keith said, and Lance jumped at the golden opportunity without a second thought. 

“We have some first aid supplies back at base.” He gestured vaguely across campus. “We’re running kinda low right now, so it’s not much, but it’ll help, at least.”

The offer was exactly the kind of ‘something stupid’ that Hunk had pleaded with him not to pull, but really, what had any of them expected? Lance couldn’t explain his own antics on a daily basis, but this? This was the most extenuating of circumstances. He refused to let the echoes of his friends’ warnings shame him into holding the words back.

Not when he hadn’t spoken to anyone aside from Pidge and Hunk in _months_. Not when he so desperately wanted the chance to know Keith, to talk to him like an actual human being without the barrier of a drawn weapon between them. 

Two sets of eyes settled on him, wide with surprise. “Really? That’s...very generous of you. Thank you,” Shiro said. Lance just shrugged and picked at the edge of his rifle’s strap. 

“It’s not often I see people who aren’t either GALRA or hunters. Gotta stick together, you know? Not like we’re lacking space,” he joked. Shiro at least offered a pity laugh, but it was Keith’s blatant eye roll that caught his attention. 

If Keith’s resting bitch face was that gorgeous, did Lance even want to know how beautiful he was when he smiled? That was an obvious question, though, and Lance took it as an unspoken challenge to somehow make Keith laugh before they parted ways. 

Maybe. Hopefully. Better make sure Pidge and Hunk would even allow them into base before he got excited.

Above them the sun was just starting its downward trail, weaving threads of indigo and blue into the highest reaches of the sky. The bodies of the infected were already starting to deflate into puddles of pudding, releasing an awful, thick stench that stained the inside of his nose. Even if Lance wasn’t eager to tell Hunk and Pidge about his second stunning discovery of the week, he wouldn’t have needed much incentive to get away from the reeking corpses. 

“Think you can make it across the way first?” he asked Shiro, nodding towards the cluster of dorms. “My friends are over in Balmera Hall. Better to give them a heads up first so they don’t freak out.”

‘ _Considering they’re looking for you and expect you to be hostile_ ,’ his thoughts tacked on, but he kept that particular information to himself. 

Shiro eyed the distance before testing some weight on his leg. His brows pinched, but he didn’t cry out or fall, and that was apparently all the go-ahead he needed to nod. 

“I’ll be fine if I keep the weight off of it,” he confirmed. Lance grinned and outstretched a hand.

“Need some help?” Before he could take a single step Keith moved between Lance and his brother with his most intense death glare yet. He wordlessly took Shiro’s arm over his shoulder, glaring the entire time and yep, Lance’s sense of self-preservation had definitely gotten warped after four years of this shit because that look just made him grin.

“O-kay, looks like you’ve got that covered, Mullet Man,” he teased, and Shiro snorted. Lance spun on his heel and gave a grand gesture at campus. 

“Well then, I hope you’re ready for Lance’s Two-Cent Garrison Tour. Keep your hands, arms, and wounded legs inside the pavement at all times, and a-here we go!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GALRA = Government Army and Legal Research Authority
> 
> Happy holidays, everyone! I hope you all have a merry Christmas and a joyful New Year's! ^^ 
> 
> Find me [@casiosiris294](http://casiosiris294.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you'd like to chat or cry over season 8!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To anyone who noticed the "alternating POV" tag on this fic and has been wondering when exactly that was going to happen, wonder no longer! xD This chapter took me WAY longer to write than I anticipated; I didn't think I would have trouble with the POV switch, but it ended up being a struggle to figure out Keith's headspace in this universe after writing in Lance's for so long. 
> 
> That said, I'm super happy with how this chapter came out, so I hope you all enjoy it!

Keith couldn’t figure out if Lance was ignoring his glaring, or if the idiot genuinely didn’t notice the holes being burned into his back.

Given that he was acting as their guide, Lance strolled a few paces ahead, leading them along the winding concrete paths that branched across the Garrison’s campus like the threads of a spider web. Keith and Shiro followed at a slow shamble, pacing themselves so as not to agitate Shiro’s injury, forcing him to stop every few minutes and wait for the pair to catch up. Even so, Lance’s gait was jaunty and his arms swung with every bounce in his step, like he was happy as could be about towing along a pair of total strangers. 

Worst of all, he _hadn’t stopped talking_ since they’d set off. 

Keith had never met anyone who could talk this much. A single breath lasted him so long that with every sentence he was sure that Lance was about to pass out from lack of oxygen. But then he’d pause for half a second and launch back into it like he’d never stopped at all. 

It would’ve been fascinating if it wasn’t so obnoxious. As it was, it only added more fuel to Keith’s ongoing death glare. 

Thankfully—or decidedly _not_ , since it was only encouraging him—Shiro made polite albeit awkward small-talk as they followed in Lance’s shadow, sparing Keith from having to join in and giving him plenty of time to fume over how unbelievable this entire situation was. The furious thought of ‘ _I can’t fucking believe this_ ’ looped in his head over and over to the tune of their collective footsteps.

Out of all the people they could have run into, Lance was probably the worst possible outcome outside of a whole platoon of GALRA. He could still hardly believe that the person he’d encountered the day before and the person who’d shown up out of nowhere and sniped a throng of infected with frightening precision was _the same fucking guy_. 

The guy who hadn’t even tried to defend himself. The guy who’d had the nerve to call him ‘samurai’ like they’d been friends for years when he was an inch away from death. 

It had been bad enough when he’d thought all there was to Lance was a bumbling idiot—which was still true. Painfully so. But now he knew that there was _skill_ hidden under the chipper chatter. The barrel of Lance’s rifle bounced against his shoulder as he walked, swaying and glinting in the sun like it was taunting him.

He’d purposely coaxed Shiro out of wandering all over campus the night before on the off chance the guy hadn’t booked it after he’d let him go, but _of course_ it didn’t matter in the end. _Of course_ Lance was living here. Keith had been dreading the possibility of running into him again since the moment he’d left the hangar, and now not only did Keith have to deal with him again, but they’d run into each other in a way that had Lance actually saving his ass. 

It was disgustingly ironic. It was the kind of irony that pissed Keith off and made him want to punch something. Namely Lance, straight in his motor mouth. 

It didn’t help that he could feel Shiro looking at him between his responses to Lance’s endless chatter. His teeth clenched hard enough to crackle in his skull. 

‘ _I can’t fucking believe this_.’

He had to stay focused. He had to be on guard, _especially_ now. Unfortunately, that meant having no other choice but to tune back into Lance’s mostly one-sided conversation.

“I went to school here and I still can’t get over how huge this place is,” he was saying, apparently going on about the Garrison. His fingers were laced behind his head and his elbows jutted into the air as he walked like he owned the place. “The paths take longer, but it’s safer when you’ve got an injury. There’s so much debris everywhere that going off the paths is pretty much asking to face-plant five-hundred times.” 

He glanced over his shoulder and gave Shiro an apologetic look, somehow missing the look being directed _at him_ even though Keith made no effort to temper it. “Sorry to make you walk all this way. You doing alright?” 

Shiro shrugged. “Don’t worry, I’m fine. We would’ve had to walk somewhere, anyway. Somehow I don’t think sitting down in the middle of the field until it healed would have ended well.” 

“True.” Lance turned around this time, facing them and walking backwards. “But hey, if you’re having a rough time, we’ve got enough scrap and junk lying around that we could just make you a little hideout. Pick a nice cozy spot of grass full of pointy bits and build a metal tent around you or something.”

Much to Keith’s annoyance, Shiro’s mouth quirked at the corners. “That doesn’t sound very safe.” 

“Safe as anywhere else, so long as you check the ground before you sit your butt down. Think about it, it’d be great! Getting to just sit and chill out and let everyone else worry about shit for a while? Just chilling in the grass and sunbathing all day, having people bring you food and whatever else you need.” Lance’s grin was easy, as if he wasn’t spouting an endless stream of bullshit. “Sounds like heaven to me. You can’t find that kind of relaxation anymore.” 

Shiro gave a thoughtful hum. “I’ll still be able to do that, though, just indoors where it’s safer. Right, Keith?” 

Keith would’ve thought his total silence up until this point was a pretty good indication to leave him the fuck out of this ridiculous conversation, but apparently not. The mention of his name forced him to at least acknowledge that it was occurring. Shiro met his look of displeasure with one of playfulness. “I’m sure I can count on you to cater to my every whim, right?”

It was a bit difficult to glare at him when they were so close, but Keith managed. Shiro’s snicker tapered into a wince, and Keith paused, his frustrations momentarily drowned out by renewed concern.

“You okay?” he asked. He stilled so Shiro could adjust his weight, and was vaguely aware of Lance stopping, too. 

“Oh yeah, just great.” His brother was good at keeping his pain hidden for the sake of others. He could’ve fooled anyone else, but Keith could read the line of tension in his jaw and the pinch in his brow. 

Keith’s lethal look returned full force and locked back onto its original target. “How far are you taking us?” he demanded. “There are buildings everywhere, we should stop and take cover somewhere close by.”

“Hey hey, easy, samurai.” Lance held up his hands, once again either totally missing or blatantly ignoring how Keith bristled at the nickname. “Our main base is where the medical supplies are, and if you’re gonna stay there, we have to talk to my friends first. They need to know you’re here so they don’t freak out about it later. Plus, uh...” 

A hand dropped to rub at the back of his neck. “Technically Pidge is in charge? So if you want to stay, we have to run it by her. Not that I don’t think she’ll let you! I mean she’s careful, yeah, but not cruel, so even though I told them you—that you’re—ya’ know what? Even though nothing, you _do not_ need to hear that, shutting up about it.”

Lance’s tone grew in both volume and pitch as he rambled. There was clearly something hidden within those stammered words that Lance didn’t want to admit, and as much as Keith wanted to question it, the last thing he wanted was to give him an excuse to talk _more_. Lance cleared his throat. 

“A-anyway, I’ll talk to her, so it’ll be fine, but yeah. Gotta get permission from the boss lady first.” Lance’s eyes darted around the sidewalk for a moment before he looked up with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to make you walk so far, Shiro. We’re getting close, though, if that helps?”

Shiro returned the smile and adjusted his hold around Keith’s shoulders. “Really, it’s okay, I get it. I’ve had worse; I think I can manage a little more walking.”

Lance’s posture relaxed a bit. “Glad to hear I’m not actually torturing you. I could help too, but...” He side-eyed Keith’s glower and shrugged.

Shiro actually laughed at that, damn him. It was a good thing they weren’t walking; Keith was so startled by the sound that he would’ve tripped and made things infinitely worse. 

“Yeah, I know,” Shiro chuckled. “I appreciate the offer, anyway.”

They let Shiro rest for another few moments before continuing their trek. Lance fell back into his leisurely backwards stroll, though now he walked a touch slower. 

“Gotta say, though,” he went on, “you’re lucky that cut is all you got for exploring blind. This may be our hideout of choice, but it can be pretty dangerous around here if you don’t know where to avoid. A couple buildings were totally wrecked when GALRA bombed the city. Some are still okay, but it can be tricky to tell what’s unstable. Most of the debris everywhere is actually from the city itself—fucking bombs were strong enough to blow whole cars all the way over here. I shit you not, we found a minivan all the way out on the flight range.”

They approached a curve in the path, and Keith found himself wishing Lance would miss it and fall over when he unexpectedly stepped off the sidewalk, but he followed it effortlessly without looking. He pointed out back the way they’d come, past the all-too-familiar silhouette of a hangar. “Not like it would run, but it was still mostly intact. Even had the luggage in the trunk still and everything. Oh! That reminds me: any chance either of you know where the hell all those infected that were after you came from?” 

The question was posed to both of them, but for some reason Lance looked right at Keith when he asked. Keith frowned at the non-sequitur—how the hell did this guy’s brain even work?—and raised his chin defiantly, but Shiro flicked the back of his neck with the hand slung across his shoulder. He would’ve crossed his arms if one of them wasn’t occupied supporting Shiro’s weight. 

“I don’t know,” Keith grumbled. “I was in some building—”

“Which one?” Lance interrupted. Keith frowned even harder. 

“It started with an ‘o.’” 

“Had to be Oriande Hall, then. Were you in the basement?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you open the big-ass metal doors with a bunch of crazy contraptions around them?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you _leave_ them open?”

“Yeah?”

Lance sighed long and loud until his shoulders drooped. “Pidge is not gonna be happy,” he muttered, pinching the bridge of his nose. “At least that’s one mystery solved. A bit of friendly advice: next time you find a big door covered in locks, it’d probably be better not to open it. People usually lock doors for a reason, yeah?”

He flashed a chipper grin before spinning back around to walk forwards, Keith’s irritation rolling completely unnoticed off of his shoulders. It was quiet for a few moments and Keith dared to hope that he’d finally gotten the hint to shut up, but those dreams were dashed before they could even fully form.

“So did you just get to Plaht City?” Lance questioned, and Keith cursed him for being so determined to make conversation. 

“That’s right,” Shiro said. “We came up from the south and into the Garrison a day or so ago. We planned on gathering supplies here before moving on to the city.”

“Considering I know there’s nothing left here aside from a bunch of rusted-out planes and trashed dorm rooms, I’m gonna go ahead and apologize for the waste of your time,” Lance said. “My friends have been here even longer than I have; we’ve pretty much stripped the place of all the food and meds by now. I have to go into the city when we need supplies.”

At least Keith could be fairly sure that much of what Lance said was true—they hadn’t found jack shit in the day they’d spent plundering the buildings across campus. Shiro normally carried their backpack of supplies, but Keith had taken it from him considering his injury, and he could feel that it was dangerously light where it thunked against his left side with every step. 

Despite that, Keith still wasn’t happy about how quick Shiro seemed to be to trust their newfound, pain-in-the-ass companion. He’d gone hungry before and he’d do it again if it meant avoiding trouble that they couldn’t afford. Shiro was already hurt, and that put them at an instant disadvantage if Lance and his “friends” were plotting something. It wouldn’t have been the first time a hunter had played innocent to try and lure them in. 

Yes, Lance had helped them with the infected. But Keith knew that a single good deed didn’t make Lance a good person. He was acting friendly, but something he’d said sat sourly in Keith’s stomach, making his inherent mistrust fester worse than an infected bite.

_Those bastards gave up on me a long time ago, they probably think I’m dead by now_. 

To anyone aside from him and Shiro, encountering GALRA soldiers would mean salvation in the form of assistance and protection to the nearest quarantine zone. Most people sang the GALRA’s praises for all they’d done to protect the people after the collapse of the country’s government following the outbreak. 

Keith and Shiro were the only people who knew any different. What could Lance possibly have against them? 

He’d even guessed that the two of them were against GALRA and hadn’t batted an eye. The only ones who stood in opposition of GALRA were hunters who thrived on the chaos, and yet Lance hadn’t hesitated to invite them into what was essentially his home. 

“They city’s pretty picked over, now, too,” Lance went on, oblivious to the way Keith scrutinized every inch of him for any hint of deception hiding underneath. His eyes traveled across the sunlit wisps of brunette hair that bobbed as he walked and tickled the back of his neck, the dirtied blue shirt pinched tight across his torso by the strap of his gun, the easily confident steps of his long legs— 

Keith jerked his gaze away, glowering at the skyline and steadfastly ignoring the odd clench in his chest. “We don’t need much,” he said stiffly.

“The only places left with guaranteed supplies are the quarantine zones.” Lance gave the pair a sympathetic look over his shoulder—but there was something else there, too. Lance watched him closely as he spoke, “If you’re looking for a QZ, there aren’t any nearby. If you came from the south you would’ve passed the closest one a while back.” 

Keith met his stare unflinchingly. “We’re not.” 

Lance’s brows raised when Keith didn’t elaborate. Shiro piped up once the silence stretched too long, “We’re traveling across country. We’re not looking to settle anywhere just yet.” 

It was a none-too-subtle diversion of the topic, still a polite enough answer without giving away their plans. Lance hummed, glancing between them. “Well, you’re not going to get far like that,” he said with a nod at Shiro’s leg. The red of the bandana was already darkening overtop the wound. “After we get you patched up you’re welcome to crash with us for a couple days until you can get back on your feet—assuming my friends are okay with it, which, like I said, I’ll make sure they will be.”

“We wouldn’t want to intrude,” Shiro assured, and Keith scoffed. It was a little late for that. 

“You kidding? This place is so fucking big—it’ll be nice to have a couple more people around for a while.” Lance tried to hide it, but the quickness of his replies gave his eagerness away. It was obvious Lance _wanted_ them to stay, and that made Keith more suspicious than anything. 

The path they followed ran alongside several buildings. Keith let his eyes wander while paying half-attention to Lance and Shiro’s continued attempts at conversation. Each building was damaged to some extent, some much more than others. A few of them were missing entire sections of their structure, piles of dust and brick gathered where walls and corridors once were, while some didn’t seem to have suffered more than a few broken windows. He squinted at the name imprinted in huge, silver letters across the side of one of the buildings as they walked passed, and his brows furrowed. Daibazaal Hall. Where the fuck did the people who’d built this school get such unpronounceable names?

Suddenly Lance was laughing, and Keith whipped around to find him watching him. 

“What?” he asked, sharp and accusatory, and Lance snickered.

“Nothing, nothing. They’re weird names, right?” Keith just blinked at him, which he apparently took as his go-ahead to keep talking. “I’m with ya’, man, it took me forever to remember how to pronounce them all. Apparently all the campus buildings are named after the founders of the school. You should’ve seen my face the first time I had a class in Naxzela Hall. I had no idea where it was, and I didn’t wanna try to ask anyone ‘cause I knew I’d butcher the pronunciation. Some of ‘em aren’t too bad, but others? _Yeesh_. Sucks to be the people who had those names, right?”

Keith stared blankly at Lance’s expectant look. On top of all the other reasons Keith had to resent him, the more he listened to Lance talk, the more he was convinced that Lance was an _idiot_. Not like he hadn’t known that already, though, after how they’d met. 

_I’m not going to hurt you_ , Lance had said, as if Keith hadn’t already had a fucking knife to his throat. As if _Keith_ had been the one in any danger at all. 

Keith blinked back to the present moment to find that the conversation had already moved on without him. Shiro was laughing while Lance was grinning like a buffoon, and Keith glared at the boy who joked more easily with his brother than he’d ever been able to, his grip tightening on Shiro’s shoulder. Shiro had stopped him from continuing where they’d left off in the hangar once, but if he moved fast enough...

Something deep in Keith’s chest reared back with startling force as soon as he entertained the idea. His lips pursed and he shoved the thought away, distracting himself by trying to reconcile the idiotic boy from yesterday with the swaggering, loudmouthed sniper currently raining rapid-fire blabber down upon them.

They walked for another twenty minutes or so, long enough that Keith was just about to snap at Lance for marching his injured brother in circles, when they came around the far end of a building labeled Balmera Hall. Lance held the door and Keith helped Shiro across the small atrium to a line of benches by the stairs. 

Shiro settled with a grunt and lifted his leg to rest along the length of the bench. Lance stood on his tiptoes and searched what was visible of the second floor. 

“You guys should probably wait here,” Lance said. “They could be anywhere in here. I’ll find them and bring them to you.”

“Works for me. Thanks, Lance,” Shiro said, and Lance shrugged. 

“Hey, no big. You take a rest after all that walking, okay? I’ll fill ‘em in on the way. HEY, GUYS! Hunk! Pidgeon! Where are you?”

Lance spun around and shouted at the top of his lungs, the already harsh sound echoing in the atrium and making Keith wince. He watched Lance with brows in his hairline as he started up the stairs, yelling the whole way. 

Eventually Lance and his screaming faded down an adjoining hall. Before Keith could even try to enjoy the first real moments of silence since Lance had shown up, Shiro chuckled. 

“Talkative, isn’t he?”

“That’s one word for it,” Keith grumbled. “You’re not seriously thinking about staying here, are you?” 

“I don’t see why not.” Shiro shrugged in the face of Keith’s incredulous look. “Lance is willing to help us out, and he seems sincere. Why say no?”

“Because we have to keep moving? Because every day we stay in the same place puts us at risk? You know that, Shiro. We don’t have to go far while you’re hurt, but we shouldn’t stay here.”

“Lance said there haven’t been any GALRA in the area for a while. We should be fine for a couple of days.” 

Keith’s irritation flared. He could feel his expression twisting with it. “Why are you trusting what he says so easily?”

Shiro sighed, and Keith could tell he was willing himself to be patient as if he was talking to a toddler. “I know it’s hard not to think this way, but not everyone is out to get us. Lance didn’t react to either of our names. He has no idea who we are, which means he can’t be with GALRA no matter how suspicious you are.”

“Do you really believe that? Did it ever occur to you that he could be _lying?_ ”

“Do _you_ really believe he has that good of a poker face?” Shiro fired back instantly, and Keith was powerless to stop the resurgence of a memory from the day before. He’d stared into Lance’s ocean eyes and saw everything: from fear and alarm on the surface, to currents of something bright and unnamable rippling deep within. Combined with what he’d seen during their walk, he could already tell that Lance was fairly easy to read. 

He made a face. “I guess not.”

His brother had the nerve to nod like he’d already known the answer. “It’s not permanent, but we could both use a rest—especially now.” He gestured to his injured leg with a grimace, and Keith sighed, the anger draining out of him as he knelt down in front of the wound.

The bleeding had slowed, but the patch of red staining his bandana was bigger than it had been before they’d started their trip across campus. Frowning, Keith spread out the bandage where it had bunched up and re-secured the tie that kept it in place. A part of him _was_ glad to have somewhere potentially safe to rest while Shiro healed, but it was small and easily overpowered by the part of him that recoiled in the face of trusting others.

Of trusting _Lance_. 

“We’ll rest up, resupply, and be on our way again as soon as we can,” Shiro went on in a tone that said he’d already decided for them. Keith ignored him and focused on fiddling with the bandage. “You know, for someone who’s been nothing but helpful, you seem even more averse to trusting Lance than usual.”

There was an obvious question in the words, a verbal bait that Keith refused to take. He clamped his mouth shut around the defensiveness that bunched up behind his teeth and made himself wait a full, measured five seconds before responding.

“It’s too convenient.” Not a complete lie, but also not the entire truth. “He just happened to show up just in time to help us with those infected? On this huge campus?”

“Coincidences still happen even now, Keith,” Shiro pointed out, too patient to _not_ grate on Keith’s nerves. “And you saw that rifle. Who knows where he was when he spotted us. He could’ve been on the other side of campus.”

Keith’s frown deepened. “Fine, but you can’t deny that he’s too eager for us to stay.”

“We don’t know how long it’s been since he’s seen anyone. How long has it been since _we_ have?”

“He said he’s here with other people. Friends.”

Shiro shrugged. “You’ve never been a people-person even before the outbreak, but I can understand wanting company. Meeting new people is dangerous now. He was probably thrilled when we didn’t attack him on-sight.” 

Irrationally, Keith felt the tingle of a flush at the tips of his ears. He turned his face away to hide it from his brother’s keen eyes. 

“We _should_ have,” he grumbled. Shiro nudged his shoulder with his elbow. 

“Don’t think I don’t know how close you were even after he saved us.” Keith rolled his eyes, shifting to sit on the floor leaning back against the bench so he could glower out the glass wall of the atrium. “I’m not saying your wariness is a bad thing, but I have a good feeling about Lance. He seems like a nice kid.”

Keith scoffed, for once not in the mood to comment on his brother talking like an old man. Of course Shiro had one of his “good people sense” feelings about Lance. Usually their danger senses were more on the same page, but there were always exceptions. He glared hard at the shards of glass remaining in the panes of the windowed wall without really seeing them, swept up in a memory.

He remembered it with uncanny clarity, vivid enough that it felt like a recurring dream every time it cycled through his head. Scouring the supply room after Shiro had gotten him inside. Hearing footsteps echoing from the doorway. Knowing that his brother would’ve called out to him if he’d come back so Keith didn’t mistake him for an enemy. Hiding behind the largest object in the room, holding his breath and straining to hear every puff breathed by the stranger. The approach of footsteps, and the moment of silence that told him the person had noticed his trail in the dust. Waiting for the last possible second.

Leaping out from behind the engine in a flash. Grabbing the first article of clothing he could get his hands on and throwing the person into the engine, pinning them there. Drawing his knife, raising it with his eyes along a rumpled, dingy t-shirt stretched by broad shoulders, the long curve of a bare throat, a flash of white teeth between open lips, then—

Then _nothing_.

Because Keith had _hesitated_. 

He’d learned a long time ago that compassion was only good for getting people killed. The love he had for his brother had already been enough to nearly kill them both, and they didn’t need any more liabilities. The less people who saw him and knew where he was, the safer he and Shiro would be. 

So Keith buried his compassion deep and did what he had to do. Soldier, hunter, scavenger, citizen—if anyone caught a clear enough glimpse of them, it didn’t matter. One less person to possibly give information to GALRA was worth the stains on his blade. He’d long since resigned himself to survive by any means necessary in a world he wasn’t convinced was worth surviving for.

It was absurd for him to get tripped up just because the latest person who’d spotted him had done so with the most gorgeous pair of blue eyes Keith had ever seen. It was absurd for him to suddenly feel like he’d been submerged underwater and had to fight his way back to the surface through every glimpse of fear and surprise and—and _awe?_ what the fuck?—flashing in those depths. It was absurd for him to freeze when his brain processed that the brown skinned, blue eyed boy he was about to silence forever was _beautiful_.

Keith didn’t discriminate. He didn’t _hesitate_. And that meant that Lance didn’t have to threaten them to be dangerous for an entirely different reason. 

But there was no way in hell he was going to tell Shiro that. 

His eyes finally returned to his brother, resolved to hold firm in his obstinance without explanation and hoping that his usual amount of paranoia was enough of a cover. “I just don’t trust him. He says he’s getting his friends, but he could be leading his entire band of hunters to us right now.”

Shiro was giving him one of his looks that said his patience was starting to wear thin. “Have I ever told you that you’re ridiculously stubborn? You’re so sure Lance is so bad when we don’t have that great of track-records ourselves.”

“Only every day since I came to live with you. And I never claimed to be a good person.”

Shiro gave a short laugh. “At least you acknowledge it. Look, I know you don’t like to trust people, but Lance saved us from those infected. He isn’t GALRA, and if he were any standard hunter trying to kill us for our supplies, he would’ve done it when we were none the wiser. I’m not saying we shouldn’t be cautious, but if they are sincere, Lance and his friends are willing to offer us medical supplies _and_ shelter. I say we shouldn’t pass that up.”

Shiro was quiet for a moment, then he gestured to his injury. “This might not look bad, but it could still get infected on its own. As much as I love you, I really don’t want to lose another limb for you.”

Keith gaped at him, horribly offended. “It’s like you joke about that just to piss me off.”

“Oh no, I’d never do that. Unless of course _you’re_ being especially stubborn and not telling me the whole story, then all bars are off.”

Keith fought the impulse to stiffen, knowing that Shiro would notice. “‘The story’ is that I don’t trust Lance, and until he proves that he’s telling the truth and not just waiting for us to let our guard down, that’s how it’s going to stay.”

“Suggesting you’ll cool it with the suspicious looks afterwards? I think we both know the likelihood of that, but hey, I can dream.”

Keith blindly whacked a hand backwards, aiming for Shiro’s side but hitting his prosthetic instead. He yelped and drew his hand to his chest while Shiro laughed. 

“That’s what you get for striking against your poor, injured brother,” Shiro teased through his laughter. Keith shook out his stinging hand and flipped him off with the other.

“I hate you.”

“Aww, love you too, Keith.”

Footsteps echoed towards them and their bickering tapered off. Keith stood and watched the upstairs balcony for any sign of an ambush, only to be met with the sight of Lance’s head popping back into view. 

Lance waved and hopped down the steps two at a time until he reached the ground floor. “O-kay, they’re on their way. They were in the middle of some nerd stuff, so they’ll be here in a sec.” 

“What took you so long?” Keith asked, barely giving him time to finish. He still wasn’t convinced that a squadron of hunters wasn’t about to emerge from the shadows with guns blazing; he certainly wasn’t about to take anything Lance said at face value.

Lance blinked. “Dude, you saw how big this building is. I had to track them down first and then, ya know, explain everything so they didn’t freak out. They’re about as trusting as you, especially with people whose preferred greeting is jabbing a knife at their face.” 

Well, at least Lance’s friends had a better sense of self-preservation than Lance himself. “I wasn’t going to do that to _them_.”

Lance drew back in offense. “Oh great, so it’s just me, then! _Both times_ , dude. Both! Times!”

“Both times?” Shiro echoed. 

“How many friends did you say are here with you?” Keith asked without acknowledging Shiro’s question. Lance eyed him for a long moment, a spark of something in his gaze, and Keith suspected that _he_ suspected why he’d been quick to divert the conversation.

“I didn’t say, actually. And don’t you worry, you’ll find out in a second. I hear them coming now.” He turned back to the stairs and waved. “Hey guys! Come join the party!”

Two people came into view at the top of the staircase. Their silhouettes differed so greatly that it was almost comical, one nearly twice the height of the other and larger in every possible way. Seeing that Lance’s “friends” were only two people took the slightest edge off of his paranoia, but Keith still kept a keen eye on them as they came down the stairs.

“Guys, meet Keith and Shiro. Keith and Shiro, meet Hunk and Pidge,” Lance introduced, gesturing grandly between the two pairs in turn. 

The two newcomers stopped a few feet away from Shiro’s bench. The boy was startlingly big, enough to probably give Shiro a run for his money in a fight, but despite his intimidating girth, his demeanor read kindness and uncertainty rather than threat. He offered a smile that seemed genuine aside from a whisper of wariness in the very corners. The sleeves had been torn off of his yellow shirt, and the front of it was covered in a collection of oil stains. 

“Hi, I’m Hunk, like Lance said,” he said with a small wave that was obscured when the other person, a short girl with wild ginger hair, shoved her way in front.

She planted her feet with her arms crossed, and though she stood a full two heads shorter than him, Keith could feel her scrutiny as keenly as if she were staring level into his eyes. The right lens of her glasses had a massive crack running from the top of the circle to the bottom; it gave her eye the illusion of being disjointed, like a puzzle that had been built atop an uneven surface so the edges of the pieces jutted up into the air and overlapped where they shouldn’t. Her irises were colored with suspicion and something else that made them flash in the sunlight.

Shiro was big and muscular and Keith knew how wound up and defensive he looked, but even so, she didn’t seem to be the least bit afraid of them. Her eyes and posture were all fire and confidence. Keith wouldn’t have thought it possible for him to be intimidated by someone so small, but there he was.

“And I’m Pidge,” she said, “but you can call me ‘the boss.’ Or ‘Our Genius Overlord,’ whichever you prefer.” 

Lance rolled his eyes. “Do you have to gloat about your big brain to everyone you meet?”

“Do you have to flirt with everyone you meet?” Pidge fired back, not even sparing Lance a glance when he sputtered. 

“I think what they mean to say is that we’re glad the infected didn’t get you guys,” Hunk interjected. He shook his head in a way that made Keith think he was all too familiar with diffusing conversations just like this. 

Shiro shifted to sit properly on the bench so he could face everyone, wincing when his foot landed on the floor. “We’re glad, too. If Lance hadn’t shown up when he did, we would’ve been a lot worse off.”

“Yeah, sometimes his hero complex is good for something.” Pidge’s expression shifted, then, a toothy grin cutting across her face. “So does that mean this is Mister...?” she gestured at Keith and fluttered her eyelashes dramatically. Keith had no clue what she was talking about, but Lance seemed to know. 

“Pidge!” he hissed, red-faced and voice a touch higher than usual. Pidge only snickered.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” She turned her attention back to them and her expression mellowed. “So, Lance says you wanna stay here?”

Keith’s only answer was to intensify his frown, so Shiro answered for them. “Just long enough for my leg to heal. We won’t stay long, just a few days.”

The two seemed to notice the bloody bandage on Shiro’s leg at once. Pidge grimaced, while Hunk looked a bit green around the gills until he averted his eyes. A look passed between the two, and at the end of it, Pidge’s eyes skewered straight into Keith.

“And you won’t be any trouble?” she asked. Keith caught her meaning instantly. 

So Lance had told them. Not all that surprising, but potentially problematic considering Shiro didn’t know about their previous “meeting,” if it could even be called that. He didn’t need to know about Keith’s moment of weakness. 

That was all it had been: a single moment. It wouldn’t happen again.

He stood straighter, back rigid and glare cutting across the room to Lance. The boy blinked, glancing around himself as if Keith could be looking at anyone else, then had the audacity to shrug and flash a nonchalant “oops?” expression that was ruined by a half smirk. 

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Keith said, short and clipped. 

Pidge was quiet for a long moment, then sighed. “Alright, you can stay. But don’t make me regret it.” Again she stared hard at Keith until he gave a stiff nod. Pidge and Hunk’s skepticism proved his assumption that they had more sense than Lance, and as frustrated as he was with the entire situation, he had to respect them for that.

“Keith will be on his best behavior,” Shiro promised, and Keith didn’t need to look to know that an expectant stare the same as Pidge’s was burning into his back. He hated how Shiro could sound demanding and scolding at the same time. The only thing keeping him from hunching his shoulders was the fact that Lance was still watching him.

“Well then, guess we should get you patched up.” Pidge nodded to Shiro and Hunk took that as his cue. The big guy gave Keith a wide berth on his way to offer Shiro an arm, and Shiro grunted as he braced himself on Hunk and pulled himself to his feet. 

Normally Keith’s paranoia demanded he keep an eye on anyone getting so close to his brother, but Lance was still watching him intensely, so he grit his teeth and shoved the feeling down, holding Lance’s gaze. He didn’t know what the look was for, but he sure as shit wasn’t about to back down from it first. The blue of Lance’s irises shone even from a distance, and dread leeched into Keith’s stomach. 

This was a terrible idea. Keith had absolutely no confidence that he’d be able to make it through another minute of Lance’s company without punching him, much less _days_. Just as Keith was contemplating if Lance’s friends would even fault him for it if he did crack and punch him, Lance materialized at his side and slung an arm across his shoulders. 

Keith jerked away with a murderous look that was not at all subtle, and a cheshire grin stretched Lance’s face. “Well then, looks like we’ll be roomies for a while, eh samurai?”

Keith’s fists clenched. “Don’t call me that. And unless you have a death wish, _don’t_ touch me again.”

Any normal person would’ve cowered under Keith’s glare, but Lance looked way too amused. A mutual understanding of Keith’s willingness to follow through on the threat of their first meeting passed between their locked eyes, and for some reason Lance let out a sharp bark of laughter. 

“C’mon, let’s go back to my place.” He winked and spun to follow the other three deeper into the building.

Instead of exiting from the atrium, the group walked through Balmera Hall to the opposite entrance. Keith nearly screamed when he saw the perfectly operational truck with more than enough room in the flatbed for all of them waiting there.

“You made Shiro walk all that way when you could’ve just _picked us up?_ ” Keith accused. Lance’s brows raised. 

“Hey, it’s not like I did it to make it harder for you, I just wasn’t keen on showing my hand when it would’ve been two against one. No offense to you guys, but I’ve dealt with enough people trying to steal Blue to last me a lifetime. Besides, Shiro said he could make it.” Lance’s eyes moved to the person in question, then, and he had the decency to look a bit guilty. “Sorry. Again.” 

“Don’t worry about it,” Shiro assured. Keith stayed close by as Hunk helped him into the passenger seat. It took a long moment for him to shift to face forward without putting too much pressure on his leg, but finally he settled. 

“You good?” Hunk asked. Shiro nodded, and Hunk closed the door before going around to the back of the truck and climbing into the flatbed. Pidge followed suit as Lance got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. 

“Come on, plenty of room back here,” Pidge patted the metal next to her. Keith huffed and sat himself in the far corner of the flatbed with his arms crossed. 

They took off and Keith did his best to keep his glare on the landscape zipping by, but it was impossible to not pay attention to Shiro and Lance in the front of the truck. None of the windows were open, so he couldn’t hear what was being said, but Keith had a perfect view of the two of them talking animatedly with matching grins the entire drive across campus. It only put him more on edge, and he shifted anxiously in his seat. 

Lance drove towards the center of campus to another, smaller building labeled Arus Hall. Before the truck had even fully stopped, Pidge jumped out of the flatbed and approached the garage-like door, fiddling with something that Keith couldn’t make out. With a soft clatter the door raised, and Lance drove them inside before switching off the engine. 

The inside of the garage was empty aside from the truck and random piles of junk. Keith disembarked and stood his ground at the edge of the flatbed. His shoulders were tense as his eyes swept across the mounds of trash, searching along their edges and straining his ears for any signs of more people lying in wait. Hunk hopped down next to him and he nearly leapt out of his skin.

“Whoa there, sorry—didn’t mean to scare you.” Hunk gave a sheepish smile. “Do you need help with your brother or do you got it?”

“I’ll get him,” he said automatically, already moving past the other and around the truck. When he opened the passenger door Shiro gave him an amused look that earned him a roll of his eyes. He held his arms open. “You want my help, you don’t say a word.”

Shiro grinned. “I don’t think I need to at this point.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing. Don’t let me face-plant, okay?”

“No promises.”

Shiro eased himself onto ground level, leaning half his weight on Keith’s shoulder as the garage filled with the rumble of the door lowering. When it settled a heavy _thud_ echoed through the garage, and Keith’s every muscle wound tight as a bowstring. Alarm bells rang in his head and his grip tightened on Shiro, having to swallow down the urge to panic. 

Before he could get too worked up, Shiro tapped the side of his head with the hand dangling over his shoulders. His voice was soft, soothing the jagged edges of Keith’s nerves. “Hey, it’s okay. They just closed the door to keep infected out, that’s all.”

Keith breathed deep through his nose and nodded, firmly reminding himself that they could leave anytime they wanted. He wouldn’t let anyone try to stop them. “I know.”

Lance chose that moment to slide around the front of the truck with vigorous jazz hands. “Welcome to home base, sweet home base! It might not be much to look at, but trust me, what it lacks in charm it more than makes up for in security—and devilishly handsome occupants, might I add.” He aimed another wink straight at Keith’s glare.

“It’s pretty much impossible for any infected to get in here,” Pidge said as she strolled back over from the garage door panel. “Unless you’re an idiot like Lance and bring them in on the truck.”

“It was missing its legs! How was I supposed to see it flopping around in the flatbed like a dead fish?”

“You’re the one who didn’t _check_ the damn truck when you knew you had a horde chasing after you.”

“Uh, yeah, exactly. I wasn’t about to stop so more of them could catch up to me!”

“They do this a lot,” Hunk sighed from Keith’s other side, speaking softly so he wouldn’t be heard by the bickering pair. 

“You don’t say?” Shiro chuckled. He seemed as amused as Hunk as he watched Lance and Pidge go at it. Keith, meanwhile, grew more uncomfortable with every high-pitched squawk and crazy gesture. 

He didn’t understand. 

“How have they managed to survive this long?” Keith grumbled amidst a mental image of them arguing like this while fighting infected, too.

Hunk laughed. “I know it might not seem like it, but it’s part of how they show affection, especially for Pidge. She’s not a touchy-feely person, you know? And Lance acts all offended, but he not-so-secretly thinks it’s fun.” Hunk shrugged. “I’m not saying they’re not weird for it, but it is what it is. We’ve all got each other’s backs no matter what; really, those two bickering like that proves it more than anything.”

Hunk’s words made something twist inside him, something buried deep, dark and shriveled and aching. He didn’t understand. Keith grit his teeth as Hunk inserted himself between them with a mile-wide smile. “Okay, okay, to be continued after we fix up Shiro. Seriously, haven’t we made the guy wait long enough?” 

The two of them stopped immediately, their gazes swinging to Shiro in tandem. Lance winced with an apologetic smile, and Pidge cleared her throat. 

“Right. Lance, Hunk, take Keith and Shiro up to the lounge. We don’t have any spare beds, so they can sleep up there. I’ll grab the medkit and meet you up there.” 

Pidge led the group through the lowest level of the building, a latticework of grey, concrete halls. As far as Keith could tell the layout was in a grid, and yet the path they took was completely nonsensical. More than once he saw the staircase in the distance, and yet instead of heading straight for it, they turned and went around another square. It wasn’t until Keith spotted a shimmer along the floor down the direct path that he understood. 

A tripwire. 

He cursed under his breath. If the bottom floor was booby-trapped, it’d make it a lot harder for them to make a quick getaway if things went sour. Keith’s displeasure with the entire situation ratcheted a notch higher. 

When they reached the bottom of the steps, four sets of eyes focused on Shiro with varying levels of concern. 

“How far up do we have to go?” Shiro asked.

“The lounge is on the top floor,” Pidge answered. 

“So, with an injured leg, basically the stratosphere,” Lance chimed in. 

Keith resisted the urge to roll his eyes. “Can you make it?”

Shiro shrugged his free arm. “Don’t really have a choice, right? I’ll manage.”

“Ohhh no, no no, I’m not about to make you hobble all the way up there.” Hunk sidled over and dropped to one knee. He looked over one shoulder and patted the back of the other as he grinned. “Hop on, man.”

Shiro’s brows shot upward. “What? Hunk, you really don’t have to, I’ll be—”

“Limping and suffering and all around pathetic?” Hunk finished for him. “You don’t have to torture yourself. So it’s either this—” Hunk gestured to his current position, “—or bridal style. It’s up to you.” 

“There’s no shame in riding the Hunk Express,” Lance said, nodding like the statement was something profound. 

Shiro still looked unsure, so Keith spoke up, amused despite himself. “ _I’m_ not carrying you, so you might want to think about this carefully before you say no.”

Shiro sighed in defeat, and, after some careful maneuvering, was comfortably situated in piggy-backing position with Hunk’s arms supporting his weight. They made their way up seemingly endless flights of stairs, their collective footsteps echoing in the stairwell like a hail of gunfire. After the first set of steps the design of the stairwell changed, switching from dull grey to pristine white accented with orange stripes. Pidge broke off from the group on the fifth floor while the rest continued upward. 

Not only was it on the top floor, but the “lounge” was also as far away from the stairs as a room could possibly be. Keith couldn’t help but recognize how remote he and Shiro would be if they were sleeping tucked into the far top corner of the building. Every one of Keith’s suspicions whispered that they were being put there because, combined with Shiro’s injury, the distance to the exit would make it a nearly impossible escape route. By the time they arrived he was too keyed up to appreciate the halfway decent furniture being offered to them. 

“Welcome to your makeshift sleeping quarters,” Hunk announced. He crossed to the couch to let Shiro down, where he sat with a relieved sigh and a “thanks, Hunk.” Keith sat beside him, and while his brother relaxed into the cushions, Keith remained tense, his shoulders stiff and fingers clenching into tight fists atop his knees. They were completely isolated up here; he wasn’t about to let his guard down. 

“The Hunk Express is definitely my preferred way to travel. Arguably even better than Blue, as much as I love her,” Lance said as he breezed past everyone and flopped unceremoniously into the vacant armchair. “You guys are lucky, if we didn’t have these you’d be stuck sleeping on top of desks or something. It’s up to you to duke it out over who gets the couch, though.” 

“That’ll be me.” Shiro nudged Keith’s side and Keith elbowed him back on reflex. “I invoke my older brother seniority to call dibs on the couch.” 

Keith rolled his eyes, too on edge to be in the mood for Shiro’s teasing. Lance, on the other hand, certainly seemed amused as he laughed and waggled his brows in Keith’s direction. “Hey, you’re welcome to share my bed if you want.”

Keith’s immediate instinct was to gape, but at the last second he morphed his surprise into a death glare. He pointedly crossed his arms and hoped that the tingling heat welling in his cheeks didn’t show.

Hunk sat heavily on the floor next to Lance’s chair, whacking Lance’s legs on his way down. “Nu-uh, you have roommates and that is rude, c’mon man.”

Lance slumped. “You’re officially the worst wingman ever. You guys are no fun.” Hunk shook his head, exasperated. 

“Ignore him. He’s an endless fountain of nonsense, but you’ll get used to it eventually,” Hunk told them, and Keith smirked when Lance squawked in offense. “Once Pidge comes back and we get you all bandaged up, I’ll whip us up some dinner.”

Lance’s head perked up. “Do we have any more of those peaches left?” 

Hunk hummed in thought. “Don’t think so. I’d been saving them for a special occasion.” Lance made a wounded sound and sunk even further into the armchair, until his back laid nearly flat along the bottom cushion. “I know, trust me. Man, those were so good. You know what I miss, though? Strawberries. I could eat those by the package.”

“Me and the twins had competitions of who could catch the most grapes in their mouth.” Lance smiled, though there was an edge of sadness to it this time. “I’d always win, of course.”

“We used sunflower seeds,” Hunk said wistfully.

The two kept up a back-and-forth about the foods they loved that the outbreak made impossible to find. Even Shiro chimed in, leaving Keith to watch in steadily mounting incredulity until Pidge arrived with the first-aid kit. After Shiro’s leg had been disinfected and properly bandaged, Hunk excused himself and returned with five cups of...green _something_. 

Hunk handed out a cup to everyone, stopping in front of Keith last, who scrunched his nose at the suspicious substance. It looked like it wanted to be a smoothie, but was far too lumpy and grainy to be called anything other than sludge. 

“I know it looks gross, but it’s really not that bad,” Hunk assured. He waited until Keith reluctantly took the cup before sitting back down by the armchair. 

“How dare you blatantly lie to our guests like that,” Lance chided, digging into his cup with a plastic spoon. “It’s one of the worst things you’ll ever eat, but Hunk claims it has all kinds of nutrients and shit, so it’s ‘good for you.’” He grinned mischievously around another bite. “I call it food goo.”

“That sounds about right,” Shiro said. His freshly wrapped leg laid out across the length of the couch, making Keith have to sit huddled against the opposite armrest. He too eyed it with uncertainty, but dug in for himself soon enough when he saw the other three do so. 

They ate in relative silence, spoons scraping and lips smacking. The so-called food goo really was vile; Keith was by no means a chef or a food snob, and he knew that Shiro wasn’t either, but they both had difficulty choking down the sticky goop. Once he finished his cup he felt fuller than he’d been in a long while, so at least it had one redeeming quality. 

Keith expected the others to leave once the meal was done, but none of them did. Lance curled into the armchair like a particularly lazy house cat, and Pidge and Hunk settled together on the floor with a pile of parts, sorting through them one by one to remove more valuable components from inside larger, damaged pieces. The three friends chatted comfortably all the while, making an effort to include the two newcomers that Shiro easily acquiesced to and Keith shut down with cold, clipped words. 

He couldn’t stand it. Sitting there, surrounded by conversation and laughter, seeing how comfortable everyone—even his brother—was, watching them all smile and talk about every random, pointless little thing. It put Keith horribly on edge, even more so than when he had to deal with infected. Each chuckle and smile grated on his nerves, burrowing under his skin until he felt fidgety and _wrong_. 

He didn’t understand. 

All at once it was like he was watching from the outside as a group of friends laughed and had fun gathered around a comfortable living room. All at once it was like he was seeing a world that hadn’t been fucked up beyond all repair, where no one had to spend every second running and hiding and fighting for the right to spend another day doing it all over again. 

He _hated_ it. A hollow ache built in his chest, every cheerful quip and genuine smile from those around him poking it and making it writhe like a beast in a cage. He didn’t understand. 

Keith hunched tighter into himself, pressing his arms to his stomach like he could hold the sensation back. He gripped his arms so tight that he could feel his nails leaving marks through his jacket as he watched the others, oblivious to the storm brewing inside him.

Hunk had been fiddling with a part for the last ten minutes, interrupting the flow of conversation with frustrated grunts and huffs. He seemed to be trying and failing pull a piece out from inside.

“Why are you and your tiny fingers not helping?” he asked Pidge after who knew how many attempts with nothing to show for it. Pidge shrugged unapologetically. 

“I like to watch you struggle.”

“Plus,” Lance interjected, “you know, socializing. Being polite hosts, like you should be doing.” 

Hunk frowned. “I’m still socializing! I’m multi-tasking.” He stared down at the device with a screwed up expression. “Besides, I can’t just leave it _now_ —it’s personal.” 

Pidge rolled her eyes, gesturing for Hunk to hand the part over with a bored expression. “Bet you the last jar of peanut butter I can get it in one try.”

Hunk paused, considering. “Normally I’d be smart enough not to take any bet against you, but I’m convinced that this is actually impossible. You’re on.”

Pidge’s features cracked into a mischievous grin as she plucked the bit of metal from his fingers. 

“First try,” Hunk reminded, crossing his arms. “There’s a whole tangle of wires around the switch, so good luck.”

“Pshhh, easy.”

A tense silence descended that was broken only by the slightest sounds of Pidge’s sleeve rustling. Her expression was creased in concentration, while Hunk worried at his lip. Against his better judgement Keith’s gaze flicked Lance’s way, only to find him grinning smugly like he knew what was going to happen. Before he could look away Lance caught his gaze and shot him a wink, nodding to his friends with a wiggle of his brow. Keith whipped his eyes away as Shiro chuckled. 

A soft click. Ten more seconds of silence, then—

“Aha!” 

“ _What?_ How the—no way, let me see that!”

Hunk snatched the part back and inspected it from every angle, making a series of frantic noises that tapered off into a broken whine. It was quickly covered by Lance’s laughter. 

“Even I could’ve told you that was coming, dude,” Lance said. “Never bet against Pidge, you _will_ lose.”

“That might be the smartest thing I’ve ever heard you say, Lance,” Pidge said, and Lance gaped at her.

“Fuck you!”

Hunk turned the little cube of metal over in his hands, then held it up to his face to peer into a hole on one side that hadn’t been there before. “How did you even see between the wires to get to the release?”

“Little did you know that Pidge doesn’t actually need glasses, she just has to wear them or her Ultra-Vision would make us go crazy when we looked into her eyes,” Lance joked.

“Nope, no way.” Hunk shook his head. “If Pidge was a mutant she would tell me. We have a pact.”

Lance only looked a bit surprised to hear as much. “Does being a super genius count?” 

“Yeah,” Pidge said, “but we already know that each other is a super genius.”

“Fair enough,” Lance hummed. “What would my mutant super power be?”

Pidge considered that for a long moment, then a gleam lit in her eye. “Statistical improbability.”

Hunk’s smile wavered and Shiro politely muffled a laugh. Based on what Keith knew about Lance, that was an understatement if he’d ever heard one. 

Lance visibly perked. “Yeah? What’s that?”

A smirk grew across Pidge’s face. “Dumb luck.”

And just like that, Lance’s smile dropped like a stone. He threw up his arms as Hunk futilely tried to stifle his laughter. “Wow, rude! You’re just jealous of my mad ninja sharpshooter skills!” 

“Whatever you say, Lance,” Pidge snickered. Lance continued to loudly and dramatically refute her claim to a chorus of Hunk and Shiro laughing. Keith watched the scene and swallowed thickly, making himself sit still even while the ache in his chest _writhed_. When Hunk calmed he exchanged the piece of metal he held for another, larger part, this time pulling at the seam of a compartment on the side. 

“Now what are you trying to do?” Lance asked. 

“There should be a circuit board in here, but I think it’s jammed. I can’t—” Hunk dug his nails into the seam and pulled until he was red in the face, and still the metal didn’t budge. He released his grip with a heaving breath. “—get it open.” 

“Mind if I try?”

Keith jolted, whipping around to stare incredulously at Shiro. All of the odd emotions raging inside him calmed momentarily to make room for a bolt of pure panic. He knew what Shiro was going to do, and from what he’d seen of these three so far, he knew what reaction it was going to get. 

“ _Shiro_ ,” Keith hissed through clenched teeth, trying not to be noticed by the others, but his brother ignored him. 

“Oh, sure.” Hunk stood and handed over the part, leaning over and showing Shiro the seam he’d been struggling with. “See, right here? That should open, but it must be damaged inside, or stuck or something. There’s just enough of an edge to get a grip on it, but I can’t pull it apart.” 

Shiro hummed, examining the seam, then gripped it with the metal fingers of his prosthetic. With barely a tug of effort on Shiro’s part, his arm whirred faintly and the panel opened with the high-pitched creak of bending metal. 

Pidge and Lance both bolted upright, and Keith’s gut sank in tandem. They stared in awe as Hunk let out a “whoa.” Shiro grinned and handed him the part back. “Wow, thanks, man!”

“No problem,” Shiro assured. “It’s the least I could do after you’ve all done so much for us.” 

“Okay, wait wait wait, hold up—” Lance floundered in his excitement, grinning at Shiro’s arm like the metal limb was the coolest thing he’d ever seen. “Dude, does that arm give you Superman strength or something?” 

Shiro chuckled, and for a horrifying second Keith thought he was about to say more than he should, but then he shook his head. “No, nothing like that. The edge of the panel just doesn’t hurt my fingers, so I can pull it better.”

“I’ve never seen a prosthetic like yours before,” Pidge commented. Her eyes shone with interest behind her glasses, and Keith bristled. 

“Yeah, it looks pretty advanced,” Hunk agreed. 

Shiro shrugged. “I guess I wouldn’t know. I’ve never had anything else to compare it to.” He raised his arm, the dark metal gleaming in the dim light from the broken ceiling. “It’s always worked pretty well for me, but lately it’s been starting to freeze up a bit.”

Keith blinked, more startled by that information than anything else he’d seen that day. He hadn’t known Shiro had been having trouble with his arm. Why hadn’t he ever told _him_ that? Keith gaped at him, silently fuming, but the others were too wrapped up in conversation to notice. 

“Really?” Hunk stopped halfway to heading back to his seat, instead sitting on the floor in front of the couch. “Where have you been having trouble?”

“Ahh it’s not a big deal, the fingers just lock up a little sometimes.” He clenched and unclenched his fist once, twice, until Pidge perked up. 

“We could take a look at it for you, if you want.” She spoke calmly, but her entire countenance practically vibrated with manic curiosity, the picture of a mad scientist itching to get ahold of a new toy. “We might be able to help.” 

“Oh, yeah! These two are whizzes at all that tech-y stuff.” Lance waved at the pile of parts left abandoned on the other side of the room as if they proved his statement. “If anyone can get you running smoothly again, they can.” 

“There might be something caught in the joints, dirt build-up or rust,” Pidge speculated as she rose from her seat and headed towards the couch. “Or oiling it might help. What do you think, Hunk? We could—”

Keith couldn’t take it anymore. He sat up abruptly, his feet hitting the ground loud enough to make Hunk jump and scoot away. “ _No_. No one is messing with Shiro’s arm.” 

A heavy, tense silence fell upon the room until Lance moved to the edge of his seat. “Whoa, easy samurai. They just want to help.” 

Keith’s gaze snapped to him. Just the sight of him made his fury spike. “Yeah? Well they can help by minding their own damn business.” 

“Keith,” Shiro said in his warning tone, but Keith was too busy burning holes into Lance’s skull to pay him any attention. Anger seared through him, driving him to stand so he was looming over everyone else in the room.

“No, enough is enough. You want to sit here and pretend to shoot the breeze like we’re all best buddies then fine, but don’t delude yourselves into thinking that gives you permission to fuck with my brother’s arm like we’re actually close!” 

“What is your _problem?_ ” Lance leapt up to meet him, hands fisted at his sides. “As if people have to be age-old drinking buddies to help each other out! _You_ looked like you didn’t even know his arm was bothering him until he _just_ said so!” 

Hunk scurried to his feet, standing protectively in front of Pidge while reaching out to Lance in a placating gesture. “Hey, hey—guys, come on. We all just had a nice dinner, can’t we just—”

“Don’t you fucking dare!” Keith couldn’t hear anyone else over the pounding anger in his ears, over the disjointed rhythm in his chest that thrummed _wrong wrong wrong_. This was all wrong, _he didn’t understand_. “Don’t talk like you know us! You might have your own little picture perfect paradise here, but you can’t imagine what we’ve been through!”

“Oh, cry me a fucking river!” Lance waved his arms around, nearly smacking Hunk and yelling loud enough for his face to tinge red. “You think you’re the only people with a sob story? Everyone in this room has seen hell, so don’t try to pretend like you’ve had it so much worse! Do you really have such a big stick up your ass that you can’t tolerate other people long enough to let them help the brother you _claim_ to care so much about?” 

Pidge and Hunk exclaimed at Lance in unison, and Keith’s jaw dropped. Instinct made his hands twitch for his knife, fingers itching and blood singing and every built-up emotion demanding to burst free straight into Lance’s pretty fucking face. He took a threatening step forward, and was darkly satisfied at the ripple of shock and fear that travelled through the three standing opposite him. Just as he reached back to pull his blade from the back of his waistband, Shiro snatched his wrist in an iron grip. Keith’s manic gaze jerked to him. 

“ _Keith_. That’s _enough_.” His tone and sharp eyes left no room for argument. Keith grit his teeth and wrenched his arm free, pointing at Lance. 

“ _Fuck you_. We _don’t_ need your help. You and your safe haven and your delusional friends can go fuck yourselves.”

Keith spun on his heel and stormed from the room. Shiro shouted after him, but he sounded far away, indecipherable underneath the roaring in his ears and his pounding steps echoing down the building’s empty halls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember way back in chapter 1 when Lance and Keith met and Lance had his "oh no he's hot" moment? They both literally did the exact same thing to each other and it makes me laugh every time xD 
> 
> ALSO please don't hate me for Keith being a jerk, I promise he won't stay that way forever. ;3; He's a rowdy angsty boi who's been through a ton, so he just needs some time. 
> 
> Find me [@casiosiris294](http://casiosiris294.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr if you'd like to chat! <3


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